A Certain Step
by igottagetbacktohogwarts
Summary: Jane Austen once said that to be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love. They move through the steps like they've danced together for a lifetime, so in sync that even their breathing is perfectly lined up together. In which Fitz and Olivia are professional ballet dancers. AU, Olitz.
1. Any Questions?

**AN: I'm not sure if anyone's going to be interested in this because it's like… really, really AU, (we all know Fitz can't dance to save his life) but hopefully it's not too out of character? I'm not sure if I'm going to leave this as it is or turn it into a collection of drabbles and oneshots, but I wanted to post it anyway because I'd love to know what you guys think. I hope everyone is having a great evening/morning/afternoon/whatever time it is when you happen to be reading this! : )**

**If anyone is curious about what the scene they dance together really looks like, the version I'm going with here is on youtube if you search for Maria Kochetkova and Joaquín De Luz performing the Wedding Pas de ****deux from The Sleeping Beauty. ****So, without further ado, have some Fitz and Liv (who I don't claim to own the rights to) as professional ballet dancers…**

* * *

**_"_****_To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."  
_****\- Jane Austen**

* * *

Olivia is perfect; the music moves through her like oxygen, as if her bones are made from basslines, her muscles from the string section, and the tips of her fingers and toes the conductors batons, commanding the rest of the stage with grace and ease and no unnecessary melodrama – demanding that they follow her without ever even breathing a word. She is breathtaking, utterly captivating, and Fitz absent mindedly wonders how many people have noticed that he can't seem to take his eyes off her.

Ballard on the other hand, playing the Prince Désiré to Liv's Princess Aurora, whilst not a terrible dancer – is simply nowhere near her level. Truth be told, few are, but this is a professional ballet company. This is The New York City Ballet - a company of professional ballet dancers and one of the most renowned of them in the world. Though most of them don't share her rare gift, that doesn't make them entirely incapable of keeping up with her; performances would be a disaster if that were true. She simply outshines _him_, out-dances him every moment they're side by side, and it is a fact obvious to even the most untrained eye. He is perpetually a half second behind her, trying his hardest but never quite keeping up. It grates on Fitz, if he's being honest; Ballard is only holding her back, and she deserves better than that.

"Stop." He calls finally, when Jake's far too tight grip on her waist causes her to lose too much momentum for finish her pirouette, raising a hand over his head to signal for the music to be stopped also, and when they stop, she takes a step away from her partner. Whilst Olivia looks at Fitz, waiting for his comment intently - though surely she must know that he's not about to call her technique into question - Ballard looks at her, like he thinks it's her fault that they've been rehearsing the same scene for five hours. "That was sloppy, Jake." He tells him as he stands up from his seat and moves into the aisle so that they can see him instead of just hearing his voice behind the bright stage lights shining down on them, "When you're performing pirouettes pas de deux, your hands need to be _just _touching her waist, not clutching at it. And you're consistently _slightly_ behind her which throws the whole piece out of sync. Do it again, and this time I want you to focus on being connected to Liv rather than making yourself look good. This is a Pas de Deux, not a solo."

He gestures to Chambers to restart the music from the sound booth, but he doesn't sit back down. He folds his arms and he watches, making himself concentrate on Ballard rather than on the new principal ballerina who has so thoroughly captured his attention and his thoughts since she arrived here a month ago, on loan from The Washington Ballet in DC for this season. He's already trying to think of ways to convince her to stay here with the New York City Ballet though he knows she loves DC, so it won't be an easy task. They move through the first minute of the piece, and Fitz can see the frustration, the urge to argue, drawn into every line of Jake's body as he virtually ignores everything Fitz had just said in favor of doing it how he'd done it before.

"This is ridiculous," He mutters, mostly to himself, before he once again raises a hand to Chambers, and says loudly, "Enough. Once again, you're not listening to me – some of this scene is one of the simplest pas de deux a male lead can be asked to perform! How you are not getting this is beyond me."

Liv straightens up from the attitude derrière en penché, immediately stepping out of Jake's hands (he can't deny that he likes that), as he turns to face Fitz, "I'm doing it right!" He insists to him, and anyone in the theatre who was whispering to each other, waiting for their turn to rehearse, falls silent. The tension in the room is instantly palpable as they all wait to see what's going to happen next. No one talks back to the Balletmaster in chief, not ever, especially not someone with a reputation like Fitz'.

Fitz is the first to recover, not altogether surprised by Ballard's serious lack of respect. He's twenty nine but everyone knows he's probably only going to last for one more season after this one, tops, partly because of his skillset, but largely because of his piss poor attitude. He's spent his career almost exclusively relegated to the corps de ballet with the occasional understudy role here and there for the same reason. The only reason he has the chance to dance a role like this in the first place is because he'd been cast as the understudy and their leading man, James Novak, had called in sick this morning – an absolute no-no in the world of professional ballet, but Cyrus had mysteriously okay'd it before the news had reached him, and Fitz had chosen to turn a blind eye this once, knowing that everyone gets sick occasionally - plus the last thing he needs is someone contagious showing up to rehearsals and infecting everyone else. They don't have time for that kind of set back, not if they intend to open to the public a month from tomorrow.

"No, you're not." Fitz tells him flatly, walking the rest of the way down the aisle and using his upper body strength to haul himself up onto the stage. If he didn't have everyone's attention before, he sure as hell does now. "Go and sit a few rows back and I will _show you_ what this scene is supposed to look like."

"But-"

"Go; now!" His voice raises, sharpens, and Jake clearly senses that he's gone too far and will likely be looking for other employment should he chose to continue arguing at this particular moment. He clenches his jaw and he heads off the stage, huffing frustratedly as he throws himself into a seat in the stalls.

"Sorry about him." Fitz offers with a half smile, lowering his voice back down to slightly lower than normal volume, and Liv returns it shyly as they turn and move to the back of the stage. "This isn't at all for your benefit by the way, you're…" he pauses, attempting to filter his thoughts before he says something inappropriate, "…perfect." Is what eventually comes out, (a valid observation of course, but his tone of voice is a world away from the professionalism he should be exhibiting right about now, warm and intimate and just a little bit breathless) and she ducks her head slightly, embarrassed, before raising her chin proudly.

"I've worked too hard for this not to be." She tells him as he takes her hand, grinning at her marbled mix of genuine humility and well deserved self confidence, and gestures to Chambers. He breaks eye contact with her, and is suddenly hyper aware that every eye in the room is focused on them – on him - waiting for him to be anything less than completely faultless, the way he was when he retired as a principal dancer ten years ago - on this very stage, in fact.

_Deep breaths_, he thinks to himself, finding himself glad that he's kept himself in shape since then and often goes through his old warm up routine before rehearsal as he had done today. _N__o pressure._

The music begins as he takes a step away from her and raises their joined hands before leading them slowly forward. He meets her eye line as they release their grip and slowly turn inwards to face each other, and his nerves melt away like they were never there in the first place.

The assorted members of the company – mostly the Corps de Ballet, but there are a few soloists here today and a handful of the Coryphée, also – watch, enraptured by the chance to see Fitzgerald Grant III performing the famous Grand Pas de Deux from Act III of Sleeping Beauty when it was generally assumed that he didn't dance at all any longer.

They move through the steps like they've danced together for a lifetime, so in sync that even their breathing is perfectly lined up together. Cyrus would bet that if you took each of their pulse right now, that would be more or less the same too. He's been the Director of Photography with the company for decades, ever since he'd injured his knee at nineteen and had to relinquish hopes of dancing on that stage professionally, and over the last thirty-some years that he's known Fitz, he's never seen him dance this way with anyone. Fitz is a technical marvel – faultless to the point of almost mathematical – and Liv is a perfectionist of a dancer if ever there was one, but together they are sublime, and entirely mesmerizing to watch because suddenly, along with their individually exemplary technique, there is a galaxy of emotions – of the sensation that you are not watching a performance by two artists but a real wedding between soulmates who have waited a hundred years to meet and now finally, _finally_, can be together, free of the curse which both kept them apart and allowed them to meet in the first place.

"Holy shit." Cyrus says under his breath, picking up his camera.

"What?" Mellie asks from her seat to his left, as she looks up from the spreadsheet of ticket sales open on her iPad, following his eye line to see what he's staring at so intently having not been paying attention to the rehearsal (as usual; she's the business brain behind the scenes, as long as ticket sales are good she no longer cares what happens on stage). Her mouth drops open slightly, an involuntary reaction to what she's looking at. Fitz turns Olivia in the half circle of one arm, the other holding one of her hands raised high above her head as she executes a faultless finger turn before slowing to a stop in a perfect arabesque.

They repeat the same sequence again and again as they move closer to the front edge of the stage; Fitz catches her hand with an outstretched arm as Olivia moves to him, Fitz' hands form a circle around her waist as she pirouettes flawlessly, her gaze finding his unflinchingly every time her head snaps back around, before he lifts her easily and dips her across his body in a deep and graceful fish dive, then raises her back up into an attitude devant. They move away from one another in large arcs between each repetition, always finding their way back to one another unerringly.

Cyrus moves past Mellie, climbing over the seat in front and moving between two dancers from the corps to get into a better position to capture more of the marvel before him, knowing that in all likelihood the magic he's watching will never happen again. Fitz doesn't dance any more, he's made that very clear, making these photos that Cyrus is shooting almost literally a once in a lifetime chance to take. They move serenely through the spins and the lifts, focused completely on each other, and finish perfectly in time with the music, with Fitz low on one knee, reaching for her waist, as Liv reaches for him in turn with a final arabesque penché.

There is a pause of silence, broken only by the barely audible click of Cyrus' camera, as everyone in the room waits, holding their breath, to see what will happen next. Then Fitz breaks into a grin as he stands, Liv straightening up to stand back flat on her feet as their captive audience break out into raucous applause littered with whoops and whistles. He walks her forwards to take a bow, and though their exalting audience can't hear them, through the zoom lens on his camera (through which he's still ceaselessly shooting them both unrepentantly), Cyrus catches her lips form the words, _your turn_, with a radiant smile, and Fitz rolls his eyes and joins her in a second bow; this time, together. With the rest of the company still applauding them, and one arm still around her waist as if unconsciously, Fitz raises a hand to shield his eyes from the spotlights so that he can see into the audience to find Jake Ballard - who's clearly sulking and obviously jealous, and says calmly (if a little smugly), "Any questions?"


	2. Adagio

**AN: Holy moly I am so overwhelmed by the super nice response to this story?! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed, you guys totally made my night. : ) **

**I pretty much haven't been able to stop drabbling ideas in this universe since I posted the first chapter SO what I think I'm going to do is post what I write, but the chapters probably won't really be in any kind of chronological order (except, apparently, this one lol), if that's okay? I'll try and make the timing of each one clear in relation to the others when I upload it so that it hopefully doesn't get too confusing. ****Some of the reviewers mentioned that that they're dancers (thanks guys, no pressure... : ) ) so I'm so sorry if I butcher your lovely art form, I'm trying to do loads of research to keep the story as accurate as possible, but definitely feel free to yell at me in the reviews if I screw up anywhere!**

* * *

Two days after their first turn on the stage together, Fitz is walking down one of the corridors backstage, headed for his office, when he catches sight of Olivia in one of the costume fitting rooms. He stops and backtracks a step, watching silently through the long, narrow glass window in the door between them. She's wearing the costume she will wear when she dances The Rose Adagio during Act I; a pink tutu and bodice which will, when it's finished, be intricately but sparsely covered with gemstones and small pink roses. He watches her eyes move over the costume in the mirror, her face unreadable, before a slight, barely there frown crosses her face.

He doesn't have to hear her explain it to agree with what he knows she's thinking, and he opens the door and steps into the room.

"Mr. Grant." Sally Langston, the company's longtime wardrobe mistress, says warmly, tape measure hung around her neck as she turns to face him, "What brings you to my neck of the woods this afternoon?"

"Just keeping an eye on everything." He tells her cheerfully, eyes never leaving Olivia, who's watching him in the mirror.

"Something wrong?" She asks, following his eye line, and he finds himself thankful that she hasn't started the time consuming effort of detailing the dress just yet.

"This pink… it's too bright. We need to make it lighter." Fitz tells her, knowing that Liv's performance will speak for itself – she doesn't need help drawing the eye or retaining anyone's attention. She will have it. That, coupled with the too-bright color of her current ensemble will be overpowering for an adagio, bordering on camp, which is definitely not the aesthetic they're going for here.

Sally isn't offended by the request, it's not personal after all. Humming thoughtfully, she turns to her extensive case of materials in search of some samples he might prefer. Fitz raises his eye line to meet Olivia's, and the subtle frown that was there before has been replaced by an equally subtle smile. He's not sure his is as subtle as hers is.

Turning back from her case of materials, the wardrobe mistress holds out a few different options. The first is too close to the white she will wear in the following act, the second too lacy and complex to look right with the details the dress will later require, the third- he takes it from her the second he lays eyes on it, a simple dusky pink color, that he knows will look magical against her skin tone, "Let me just grab a sample tutu from the stores to match it." She tells him quickly, leaving to find one.

In her absence Fitz steps slowly up behind Liv, who's still watching him in the mirror in front of her, and passes the material in front of her waist. He raises it to the top of her dress and wraps it around her, immediately sure that it's the right one. Her skin glows next to it, and Aurora begins to come to life before them. She carefully tucks the top of the material over the top hem of the front of her dress as he does the same with the back so that he can let go of it, but his hands; the very tips of his fingers, spill slowly down her ribs to settle on her waist, as if without his permission.

Her lips have barely moved but she's smiling, now holding his gaze easily. He breaks it first, along with the contact between his right hand and her body, turning back to the messy counter to pick up one of the pale pink roses she will dance with in the scene. When he steps back to her he's closer than he was before, slowly passing the rose beneath her right arm and holding it out in front of her.

She exhales slowly; audible but not dramatic, settling the fingertips of her left hand against the backs of the fingers on his right, her thumb sweeping over his, past the knuckle, until she's holding the rose stem between her thumb and the tip of her index finger. He's the first to break their eye contact again, this time in favor of tipping his head forwards to press a feather light kiss to the ball of her shoulder. When she takes the rose, his hand falls to rest over her stomach, and her back leans into his chest as if unconsciously.

His lips are warm on her skin before they gently pull away, and he turns his head inward as he raises it, his nose skimming the arch of her neck as he drinks her in. His eyes are closed, but hers aren't. She watches him; her eyes soft and a smile feeling too brazen for this occasion. She feels honored to have him allow her to see him like this – not because of his professional reputation, however. On a purely human level, such vulnerability, such intimacy, is a gift to be treasured and guarded closely; to be protected at all costs. The fact that this person who she cares so deeply for has chosen to entrust her with that responsibility is a little mind blowing.

Three months ago in June, when they'd met for the first time, backstage at what turned out to be one of her final performances with The Washington Ballet, they'd hardly known each other but both had felt it; an undeniable spark of _something_ which exists, living and breathing, between them. Though it's clear that they both want it, they have yet to share anything more intimate than this moment, and a dance. Given that before the surprise twist to Tuesday's rehearsal, he hadn't danced properly in ten years, some could argue that's even more intimate than anything else they could be doing.

His eyes flicker open and he smiles at her, properly, happily, and though she smiles back she looks away, down at the fake rose in her hand, and he says, "You are so beautiful."

Her gaze snaps back up to his, and she half opens her mouth on an inhale like she's about to reply, when they hear the click of the door handle. Fitz steps backwards, calm and unhurried and apparently entirely unconcerned about the prospect of getting caught.

"No, you're right, that's definitely better." Sally observes when she steps back into the room, letting the door fall closed behind herself and apparently unaware that she'd almost walked in on them in a quasi-compromising position. "I'll use gold thread instead of silver for the detailing, it'll look marvelous with that shade of pink."

Liv watches silently as Sally carefully removes the material that Fitz had chosen, and Fitz describes to her his vision for the scene. He's passionate rather than animated as he talks about the background area being just dark enough to show Aurora's feeling of separation from the initial moments before she calms down and understands what's going on, how the four suitors will be dressed in muted colours to both 'blur' them slightly in comparison to Liv and to contrast them from the bright whites and golds to be worn by the prince in the next act, and she finds that she's suddenly so very glad that she decided to take the risk and agree to come here for a season - also that she's beginning to think she needs to find a way to stay here when her loan from Washington is up.

She's learning so much just by being around these incredibly talented people - Sally with her eye for detail and how best she can use her costume to her advantage on stage, Harrison with his nearly unmatched ability to perform jumps with power and grace, Abby with her stunningly intricate pointe work (and jaw droppingly seamless ability to perform said pointe work whilst quasi-hungover) and Fitz- God, the things she's learning from him, and so much of it unspoken. It feels like she matures as a dancer and grows as a person just by spending time with him, because he both challenges her and praises her in ways that make her sit up and pay attention to the moment. In twenty three years of being alive, she's never had anyone who makes her feel that way before. It's an oddly addictive feeling.

* * *

Two weeks later, when Fitz watches from the lighting booth with Cyrus and David Rosen, the lighting director, as Liv and her four nameless suitors move through The Rose Adagio, he's almost breathless with the beauty of it. Though her costume isn't finished yet - it takes longer than that to construct a tutu and bodice almost entirely from scratch - he knows that they made the right choice. She's a magnet for the eyes, captivating everyone who watches her.

"Man," David says, shaking his head, "I don't know where the hell you found this girl, but I sure hope she sticks around."

"That's the plan." Cyrus says, arms folded, "She mention any plans either way?"

"I haven't asked her since we last spoke about it when we negotiated the loan with Reston in DC." Fitz tells him, "I think we need to get through her debut first, and then I'll bring it up again when we start rehearsing for The Nutcracker."

"Speaking of her debut, are we set for the benefactor's dinner tomorrow night?" He asks, still putting the finishing touches on his shot list for the evening. He scratches out someone's name on the pad in front of him, and rewrites a different one.

"Looks like it." Fitz answers, only half paying attention.

"And your speech is finished?" Cyrus prods, knowing Fitz well enough to know that the answer is probably a sheepish _not quite_. When he looks away from his legal pad to speak, Fitz is still watching Olivia, and Cyrus' eyes flick back and forth between them. Pausing to catch their breath and grab some water between repetitions, Liv is laughing at something one of the other dancers, Harrison Wright, is saying to her as he and one of the other suitors pantomime the co-telling of what is clearly some anecdote or other, whilst Fitz looks on almost… fondly. "Fitz."

"It is, actually, thank you very much." Fitz tells him, turning to look at him with a vaguely irritated air.

"Wonder why that is." He remarks dryly, turning back to his list.

Tomorrow night, the New York City Ballet Company is hosting a dinner for it's many benefactors to introduce Liv as their new Prima for this season – her official introduction made via a speech given by the Balletmaster in Chief, of course.

Fitz opens his mouth to respond, but without looking back up Cyrus reminds him, "Look all you want, but the rules remain the same: she's off limits to you and you know it."

"Cy-"

"Look, don't touch." He repeats seriously, "We can't afford any behind the scenes drama just now. She's a career grenade waiting to go boom the second you pull her pin. It could end badly and then we definitely lose her next season, you could cause the ultimate scandal and get her pregnant thus ending _both_ of your careers, or, God forbid, your ex-wife could find out and murder you both - and we both know she would. Either way." He does look up then, and he meets Fitz' gaze unflinchingly, "Look all you want, but _don't touch._ Clear?"

"Crystal." Fitz answers calmly, if a little shortly.

* * *

When Liv steps out of the auditorium twenty minutes later, a hoodie over her white practice tutu and her bag slung over her shoulder, Fitz is leaning back against one of the notice boards, waiting for her. She slows to a stop a few meters in front of him as the door swings shut behind her, and she finds that she's thankful she left a minute or two after the others.

"I knew it." He tells her, pushing off the wall and moving to stand directly in front of her, "The first night we met, I… I knew that you, dancing that scene…" He half shrugs, though he's being completely serious, "Magnificent."

She laughs, all breath and no sound - which she counts as ironic given that she can never seem to get enough air into her lungs when she's alone with him, "Thank you."

"You ready for tomorrow?" He asks her, hands in his pockets as they start making their way down the hall at a snails pace.

"Of course," She shrugs, part reaction, part affect as she smiles, "Are you?"

"Me?"

"Well you're in charge around here so I'm guessing there's a speech to be made in your future."

He grimaces slightly and, recalling how he'd told Cyrus it was already done, says, "My task for tonight."

She pulls a shocked face that is mostly just teasing, "You still haven't written it?"

"I've written the important parts," He defends, "Your introduction is finished, it's just... the rest of it."

"Ass kissing the donors, you mean." She laughs as they walk, the back of their hands and occasionally their arms, too, brushing together, and he hears Cyrus' voice in his head saying _look, don't touch_, and he thinks of her spinning beneath his hands on stage two weeks ago, and the impossibly soft skin of her shoulder against his lips two days later, and, much the way it has since he first met her three months ago, his ever weakening resolve crumbles a little more.


	3. Nevertheless

**AN: So this one wound up a little longer than planned. Oops. (That seems to be what happens when I write fanfic for these two apparently.)**

**In which Fitz and Olivia meet for the first time. Set in June at the end of the previous ballet season. (Previous chapters were August of the same year.)**

* * *

When Liv returns to her dressing room after a performance of Gisele, she's relatively pleased with how well the whole thing had gone, but simultaneously so tired that all she wants to do is to take off her make up, go home, and fall into bed. She yawns as she reaches for the make up wipes, scraping off all the goop they put on her face every time she's on stage - don't get her wrong, she's not anti-make up or anything, but when she's not performing or going out someplace special, she's a light foundation, dash of mascara, clear lip gloss kind of girl. She's just about finished when there's a knock at the door.

"Come in." She calls as she gently pats her face dry with a flannel and reaches for her ever present tube of moisturiser.

"There's, uh, someone who wants to come back and meet you." Jeanine tells her, poking her head around the door, and Liv is surprised if a little confused by her clearly nervous (perhaps even slightly excited) demeanour.

"Who is it?" She asks, not recalling knowing anyone in the audience tonight. All of her friends are either busy with their own lives (for those of them at grad school it's right in the middle of finals so she can't really blame them) or on the stage next to her, and God knows her Father would never deign this place with his presence.

"It- It's Fitzgerald Grant." Jeanine shares, eyes widening a little with excitement, and nerves flare briefly in Liv's gut, not needing to clarify whether she's talking about THE Fitzgerald Grant or not, her tone alone is enough to render that question a waste of breath. "He seems nice," She tells her, then rolling her eyes slightly, "Not to mention he's freaking _hot_, by the way."

Liv raises her eyebrows (hoping that her _duh, everyone knows that_ doesn't show on her face), and Jeanine quickly returns to the issue at hand, "Anyway, he was pretty adamant about it – not like, a demanding asshole or anything – but it's pretty obvious that he's determined to meet you. If you say no he'll probably wait at the stage door or-"

"I'm not saying no." Liv interrupts, "Tell him it's fine."

"Of course you're not, how anyone could say no to that man is beyond me – although if the rumors are true, his ex-wife sure did say it plenty-"

Liv throws her a _look_, and appropriately abashed, she says, "I'll go tell him." before disappearing back out of the door, pulling it closed behind her and leaving Liv to ruminate in her thoughts.

What on Earth is Fitzgerald Grant – _The _Fitzgerald Grant, one of the most legendary ballet dancers of all time – doing here? Asking to speak specifically to her? That doesn't happen. People's childhood heroes simply do not wake up one morning and decide to stroll on into their lives, no matter how (presumably) brief their interaction will be, she's still going to meet him. She's going to be standing in front of one of the people who inspired her to push herself ever harder in training and class and rehearsals until she was able to calmly and confidently tell her Father that the decision was made: once she graduated High School she'd be joining the Washington Ballet Company to continue her training as a professional dancer, his approval not required and ultimately never given.

_No pressure_, she thinks to herself somewhat wryly. She takes a few deep breaths, reminding herself that he's just a person. He's just any other audience member… who happens to be so talented that he's credited with bridging the gap between Russian and American ballet after taking a hiatus from his home with the New York City Ballet and spending three seasons as the principal male lead for the universally legendary Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, that is.

There's a knock at the door and Liv licks her lips a little, steadying herself. _Okay._ She crosses the room and opens the door, finding herself inexplicably surprised by how tall he is. His lips curve into a genuine smile she couldn't look away from if she tried and he says, calm as you like, "Hi."

"Hi." She answers, smiling back involuntarily, her nerves doing a bizarre combination of doubling and disappearing with their prolonged but not uncomfortable eye contact. "Come in." She says, opening the door wider and stepping back so that he can step inside.

She closes the door and stands with her back to it. He glances around her dressing room briefly before returning his gaze to her. "I'm Fitz." He says, still smiling as he holds out his hand for her to shake. Just like that. _I'm Fitz._

"I know who you are." She says, her voice coloured with something between surprise and an odd sense of amusement as she takes his proffered hand, "It's nice to meet you, I'm-"

"Olivia Pope." He finishes for her, not so much shaking her hand as holding it before adding playfully, "I know who you are."

She laughs briefly, and he seems pleased to have elicited that reaction in her. They slowly drop hands, and he says, "I have to say, Miss. Pope, you were… magnificent tonight."

_Oh, so this is what a heart attack feels like_ she thinks, hoping her thoughts don't spill over onto her face in the few seconds it takes to dispel them. "Thank you." She tells him, "That's… quite a compliment coming from someone like you."

"I mean it." He tells her sincerely, brushing over her compliment, "You have a real gift."

"It wasn't a gift." She corrects him, not impolitely, "It wasn't given to me; I worked for it… earned it."

He almost, almost smiles, and the way he's looking at her is enough to make her feel warm all over, and suddenly, he does smile, all the way up to his eyes, and it's like looking into the sun. She can't help but smile back. "Of course." He says, after a beat, an odd combination of apologetic and pleased, "I didn't mean to imply otherwise."

Silence falls once more, and though it's far from uncomfortable, she finds herself wanting to fill it. She wants to talk to him and hear him talk, and she wants to know him, and for him to know her, and her heart is still pounding- _God, why is her heart pounding like she just stepped off stage?_

"Are you in DC for long?" She asks him eventually, and he seems to deflate a little at the question.

"No." He replies, sounding almost disappointed, "I just came down to see the show."

Brows raised and lips parted slightly with surprise, Liv says, "You travelled two hundred miles from New York to see one run of the mill ballet performance?"

"Actually, a mutual friend told me I needed to see you dance." He tells her, his hands falling to rest in his pockets.

"Which mutual friend would that be?" She asks, vaguely distrustfully, fairly sure that she would know if she had a friend in common with someone like him.

"Cyrus Beene?" He explains, clearly picking up on her hesitance, "He's the Director of Photography at The Company back in New York but he freelances occasionally, in DC and California mostly. He told me that he'd found a dancer that I had to see here, and when I saw the photos he'd taken of you as Odette and Odile…" He stops, and her heart skitters in her chest at the way he's looking at her, "My reasons for coming back here to meet you are not entirely selfless, I'm afraid." He confesses, "I was actually wondering if you'd be interested in coming to dance for me in New York."

"Dance for you?" She repeats, seeking clarification on exactly what parameters that request contains, if any. She thinks, _Please God don't let him secretly just be some creep trying to hook up with me, ugh, he probably has a checklist of every up and coming female lead in the profession and he's working his way through-_

"To join the New York City Ballet as our Prima." He tells her, "We're planning to put on The Sleeping Beauty next season and I don't need to see your Aurora to know that it would be…" He shakes his head a little, wearing that same expression he'd worn when he said _magnificent_, "You're incredibly talented, and I'd be honored to have the chance to work with you."

The Prima Ballerina of the New York City Ballet.

_What._

It's the dream of a lifetime – the dream and highest ambition of every young female ballet dancer in the western world – and Fitzgerald Grant III is standing in front of her, offering her the chance on a silver platter. Again: this doesn't happen. This is not the kind of thing that happens to real people in real life, and yet all evidence to the contrary says this most definitely is happening, right now, to her. _It's not like it's completely insane,_ a small voice in the back of her head chips in, _you have been working towards this for most of your life - and given that you're a principal dancer here means it's not like you'd be completely unequipped to handle the job he's talking about..._

She takes a deep breath, her mind working too fast to entirely consider the full implications of what she's (holy God she can't believe she has to do this) about to turn down, "Wow... You're very kind, Mr. Grant, but I couldn't just leave DC – especially not in time for next season, my contract is signed here through the next three years."

"Not a problem." He tells her immediately, and she blinks in surprise.

Once again looking for clarification, "You want to buy me out of my contract?"

"I think we'd make a great team." He answers, and then with a little more gravitas, almost like he's confessing a secret, "I'd kill to see you perform The Rose Adagio." He tells her, and her breath catches. It's arguably the most difficult piece of ballet choreography ever created for a female lead, demanding nothing less than perfect balance and technique from anyone who tries to attempt it, whilst her male suitors in the scene serve almost exclusively as human barres, there to hold her up and little else. It also happens to be a scene from The Sleeping Beauty, the show he's just told her he wants to cast her in.

* * *

A few days later, having agreed to consider his offer and nothing more, and having found herself thinking about him – the real him, the man she'd met in her dressing room, as opposed to the dancer she'd idolized growing up – near constantly since she saw him last, she arrives at her dressing room and finds a narrow glass vase sat on the vanity. It's filled with pale pink roses, four of them, with a single, thornless lavender rose in the middle.

"Do you know who left these?" She asks Jeanine when she pokes her head around the door to remind her that warm up begins in thirty minutes.

"They were delivered by a courier." She shrugs, and Liv nods her thanks as Jeanine heads out again.

When she sits down she notices that the vase is sat on a white envelope, and when she picks it up, she sees that her name is handwritten on the front in black ink. She looks from the unopened card in her hand to the flowers on the table, finding them oddly familiar for some strange untouchable reason. Flipping the small envelope over, she removes the note card, branded at the top with the New York City Ballet company's logo.

Underneath, in the same black ink and slightly imperfect handwriting as she'd found on the envelope;

_Nevertheless, I do not fear to try._

It's unsigned but in truth, Fitz didn't need to write his name for her to know who it was from. She understands now, why the flowers (the four pale pink ones, at least) had seemed so familiar. The Rose Adagio, the scene from The Sleeping Beauty he had told her he so badly wanted to see her perform, contains a sequence in which Princess Aurora is given a pale pink rose by each of her four suitors. The line from his note, _nevertheless, I do not fear to try_, is the line spoken by the unnamed prince to his advisor in the Brothers Grimm version of the original story when he attempts to dissuade the prince from attempting to pass through the thorn-hedge surrounding the castle in which the sleeping Aurora – there called Rosamond – lies in wait of being awoken by her true love.

Holy shit. She's being _woo__ed_. The New York City Ballet is actively wooing her to be their next Prima ballerina. She rereads the note, like she's expecting to find something different, and leans slowly back in her chair when the words don't magically change before her eyes. It's undeniably flattering, and she can't deny that she's tempted. She leans back in her seat, eyes returning to the vase once more.

The only remaining mystery is the fifth rose; pale purple and stripped of all it's thorns. As far as she can recall it's not any kind of reference to The Sleeping Beauty – neither the ballet nor the original fairytale - and she lifts it thoughtfully from the vase, bringing it to her nose to inhale it's scent. Maybe it's supposed to mean something else?

She puts the note back down on the vanity beside the roses and takes out her phone, pulling up Google and searching; '_what does a lavender rose mean'_ – and promptly finds that all the air sticks in her lungs like it's suddenly morphed into treacle without warning.

The first result says, _"The lavender rose is often a sign of enchantment and love at first sight. Those who have been enraptured by feeling of love and adoration have used lavender roses to express their romantic feelings and intentions."_

Maybe it's not just the Company setting out to woo her, then...

* * *

"I've been offered a job." Liv says, "And in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I'm considering it."

Eyes narrowing slightly, Samuel Reston, Head Ballet Master with The Washington Ballet, drops his pen back down onto the desk and leans back in his chair. "Okay." He says, somewhat distrustfully, "What's the job?"

"I don't know if you know this but… last week Fitzgerald Grant came up to see a show." Liv starts, and Reston tsks under his breath.

"And now he's what, trying to poach you?" He asks, an odd venomously personal quality to his voice that Liv wasn't entirely prepared for given that this is an entirely professional discussion.

"It's not like that," Liv tells him, trying not to get defensive, "It's a really great opportunity for me – to be the Prima Ballerina of the New York City Ballet? That's a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"He offered you-" He clenches his jaw, frustrated and disbelieving, "You know he's only doing this to screw me over, don't you?"

"Excuse me?" Liv asks, sarcastically thinking, _not that it could possibly have anything to do with my dancing abilities at all_.

"My whole career, every time I got close to his level he'd-" He stops again, and Liv resists the urge to tell him _you were never on or even **close** to his level_ and instead bites her tongue and waits for him to be done (most likely) ranting in his head about some perceived injustice dealt at Fitz' hand. "Just to be clear, I have no intention of letting you out of your contract before it's up."

"I know." She answers calmly, nodding, "I haven't made any decisions yet."

Oddly enough it doesn't ring quite as true, saying it this time.

"It's a moot point, Olivia." He tells her, turning back to the work on his desk, but she can tell he's just doing it to look away from her, "I just told you I'm not going to waive your contract so that you can go and swan around in New York like you're better than us."

She can't believe how personally he's taking this, how unprofessional he's being. It's a little mind boggling, and a lot like dealing with a cranky toddler. In the interest of not making things worse she just nods, and says, "I should go, I have rehearsal, but thank you for your time."

He grunts out a dismissal, and as soon as Olivia leaves his office, Reston snatches the phone out of it's cradle, hitting the shortcut button to be put through to his secretary. "Get me Fitzgerald Grant." He snaps.

"Right away, sir."

There's a click, then maybe half a minute of ringing, before his secretary answers. "Good afternoon, this is Fitzgerald Grant's office at the New York City Ballet, Lauren speaking, how can I-"

"It's Samuel Reston, I need to speak with your boss. Now." He interrupts her, and she doesn't bother to respond before putting him on hold, (she's telling Fitz, _Sam Reston is calling for you and he sounds… a little annoyed_, to which Fitz replies, _I figured he might be, put him through, please, Lauren._) and a moment later the object of his ire answers the phone.

"Sam, what can I do for you today?" Fitz says quasi-cheerfully.

"You can stop trying to poach my fucking dancers, that's what." Reston bites out through gritted teeth, "Olivia Pope is the best dancer here and she's contracted through the next two seasons after this one. You can't have her."

"I'm not trying to poach anyone. I saw the show last week and was impressed, so I offered her a job. Whether or not she takes it is up to her." Fitz replies calmly, "Has she told you she's thinking about it, then?"

"Which is the definition of poaching someone!" Reston retaliates, "And you didn't just offer her a job, you offered her _Prima_. Of course she's fucking considering it!"

"I don't know what to tell you, Sam." Fitz answers with that same, irritating as hell, relaxed tone of voice, "She's an incredible dancer and it's about time she was recognized for that."

"She's being recognized for it here, and that's how it's going to stay."

"Unless she chooses to leave." Fitz counters, "She's not your property you can't force her to stay if she doesn't want to."

"She dances for me, she's my property." Reston bites back, "And she's not going anywhere."

"I'll tell you exactly what I told her: I'm fully prepared to buy out her contract with you-"

"Ah, there's the Fitz Grant I know and loathe, always trying to throw money at the problem." Reston mocks.

"Sorry, Sam, I'm going to have to put you on hold." Fitz says, and before Reston can argue, he hears a click, and then the line is filled with that irritating as shit elevator style music, and tsking, Reston chucks the handset onto his desk. The fucking nerve of that guy!

* * *

His secretary opens the door as Reston's saying _I know and loathe_ and quickly crosses to his desk to hand him a sticky note with _Olivia Pope on line two_ written on it hastily. He reads it and swallows. He nods silently at Lauren, who leaves, and he sticks the note to the lid of his laptop, closed on the desk in front of him.

"Sorry, Sam, I'm going to have to put you on hold." He tells him, and without waiting for a reply he does so, and hits the key to answer his second line, "Olivia?"

"Hi." She says, and his lips threaten to curve into a smile at the sound of her voice.

"Hi."

"I- I just wanted to call and thank you. For the-" She swallows, "For the flowers."

"Well, it's tradition to give a dancer flowers after a great performance… if I'd known how breathtaking you were going to be I'd have come prepared." He tells her, gaze aimed at the ceiling, and she laughs, and as if out of nowhere, a horrible thought strikes him. "Uh, just to be clear… the fifth rose… I wasn't trying to- I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable, I was just- I don't want you to think that I'm trying to, to… seduce you into taking the job or anything, I just-" He stops, his original revelation being replaced by a new one – _you don't even know if she knows what purple roses mean, idiot_, _and even if she does she's probably thinking you mean_\- "And I'm not expecting anything from you to get the job, either!" He adds quickly, "The job offer is the job offer, sans any kind of… conditions."

"That actually hadn't occurred to me until you said it." Liv tells him, and it's all he can do not to pull a teenager move and bury his head in his hands. _Smooth, Fitz. Really, outstanding job._

"Well, I just wanted to make sure that you didn't think it was… inappropriate." He says, counting cracks in the plaster above his head in an effort to stop himself from thinking about all the inappropriate things he wants to say and do to her.

"Oh, it was definitely inappropriate." She answers, sounding part nervous part amused when she says it.

"But…"

"But… I never thought that the two things were… mutually exclusive."

"Good." He says, practically sighing with relief, "Because they aren't."

"I've been giving your job offer some thought and… I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued." She tells him, and he smirks.

"I figured, since I've got Sam Reston on hold on the other line in the midst of a tirade about how I'm poaching his best dancer." Fitz tells her, and she groans.

"I don't know whether to apologize for his rudeness or hang up on you for starting all this." She tells him, so easily and naturally that he laughs in surprise.

"How about we go with neither." Fitz suggests, "Reston isn't being rude because of you, he's doing it because he's a whiny, pretentious dick. Always has been, always will be. It is a truth universally acknowledged..." He quotes semi-sarcastically, amusement still clear in his voice, and Liv giggles. He wants to hear her make that sound again; so light and happy that it's almost infectious. He wants to hear it again, and he wants to be the cause of it. "And I really don't want you to hang up on me, because I don't know about you, but I'm rather enjoying talking to you."

She goes quiet on the other end of the line, but it's not a tense silence, "What?" He grins, "You're not enjoying talking to me? You get a better offer?"

She makes a noise of amusement, not quite a laugh, and with only a little more hesitation, says, "I'll have you know I have a very exciting life, Mister; I don't need you."

"So hang up." He tells her with a shrug as he leans back in his chair.

"You hang up." She laughs, then, immediately, "No. I didn't just-" She sighs, "That's it. I'm hanging up now."

"Suit yourself." He answers, still grinning, "Before you go, what do you want me to do about Reston?"

"What about him?"

"If coming to New York is what you want, I'll fight for you. I'll make it happen." He assures her, "I understand if it isn't, but-"

"I want to." She says, only she says it like she hadn't even realised until now that she'd already made up her mind, "I really- I want to come to New York. I want to dance for you. I'm sure."

"Okay then." He replies, like _that's settled, _and he can't help but wonder if she's got the same ridiculous smile on her face as he does.


	4. Crazier

**AN: So kandyse4olitz asked in a review how old Fitz and Olivia are, and I was going to just answer it in the authors note but it wound up coming up in the chapter, because I do think that it's a discussion that they need to have, vis a vis their fairly pronounced age gap. (Just to be clear; Liv is 23 and Fitz is 45.)**

* * *

Fitz steps on stage to rapturous applause, offering the gathered guests a thankful (if slightly self-conscious) smile as he walks to the podium. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our annual gathering for the benefactors of the New York City Ballet, and, this year, the chance to introduce to you one of the most poised and brilliant dancers I've ever had the honor of working with." He begins, "She's spent the last five years dancing for The Washington Ballet in DC, the last two of those as a principal dancer, during which time she stunned audiences from her first leading role as Juliet Capulet in Shakespeare's immortal classic, _Romeo and Juliet_, to her final performance as Gisele, where I was personally lucky enough to witness her captivating and innovative take on such a timeless and archetypal ballet. I know I've pretty considerably talked you up here, so no pressure, Liv." He jokes, and the audience laugh lightly, "So without further ado, I would like to welcome this season's Prima ballerina for the New York City Ballet; Olivia Pope." Fitz says, extending a hand and a warm smile in her direction, as the audience applaud and she ascends the steps onto the stage. They embrace one another briefly, and all she can really register in such an overwhelming moment is the smell of his cologne, and his warm hands on her back, steadying her.

"Your turn." He whispers in her ear on the side not facing the audience, the same way she had done after their first dance together, and she smiles widely as they step back. He takes her hand and raises it as they step forwards so she can dip down in the customary performance curtsy. They continue to applaud her rapturously, and she hears a handful of excitable cheers coming from the back of the expansive room, where the bar is. She looks up to the sound as she rises, and sees Abby and Harrison wooping for her. It softens her smile a touch, makes it just a little less perfect and performance ready, as she tries not to laugh at her new friends' exuberance.

She can feel Fitz' eyes on her to her right as they drop hands, and as if automatically she glances in his direction to find him looking at her the same way he does sometimes; the way he'd looked at her the first night they'd met, the way he'd looked at her when she'd arrived at the company for the first time, the way he'd looked at her as they'd danced… it's the look that makes her want to kiss him, the look she suspects means he wants the same from her.

"For those of you who don't know yet," He continues, dragging his eyes away from her and back to the audience as the applause begins to die down, "Miss. Pope's debut performance with us will be September 7th, two weeks from now, when she plays Aurora in Petipa and Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty. Having had the honor of guiding her and the rest of the company in their preparations, I can tell you you're not going to want to miss it." Some in the audience make noises of approval, and there is scattered applause before Fitz concludes, "I want to thank you all very much for joining us this evening, and we will of course see you on September 7th."

The audience rises to applaud them once more, with Fitz guiding Liv from the stage with one hand at her waist as they descend the steps. The guests return to their conversations, and Fitz and Liv step off to the side, standing closely but not far enough away from the other guests to arouse suspicion.

"So, how'd I do?" He asks her, and she looks up at him with a teasing smile.

"You were great, and you know it." She tells him, wearing a grin he wants to kiss from her lips, "It's most unbecoming of a legend to fish for compliments, you know."

He laughs, tipping his head back, "I apologize most sincerely if I've offended you, Miss. Pope, however will I make it up to you?" He asks, continuing their vaguely mocking blueblood affect.

"I'm sure I'll think of something." Liv answers, her sweetness betrayed by the slight smirk on her lips, and he finds his mind suddenly thinks, _I want to know what you'd sound like if I were to spread you out on my bed and go down on you for hours; if you'd moan or gasp or scream or beg, and your body; how does that respond to being drowned in pleasure? Do you freeze up when you come or do you clutch, scrabbling desperately at the sheets or yourself or the shoulders your legs are thrown over, just for something to ground you to reality?_ The smirk deepens slightly, and he has the distinct impression that she's all but reading his mind like a magazine, and he thinks _yes, I'm sure you'd think of several._

"Champagne, Sir, Ma'am?" One of the continually circling waiters offers, pausing by them with a silver tray holding six champagne flutes, and breaking through the heavy haze of the moment.

"Thank you." Fitz answers, taking a flute in each hand, but never taking his eyes off of her. The waiter briefly bows his head in a _you're _welcome gesture before heading off in search of other guests as Fitz turns his body back to face her, offering one of the glasses. She takes it, and he hesitates a moment, thinking, before saying with a purely casual affect, "To a great season."

She smiles and raises her glass to touch it briefly to his, "To a great season." She echoes in the same tone, and they both take a drink.

"I-" Fitz stops, eyes searching over her as the overt heat in his gaze simmers down, and he smiles softly at her, "I'm glad you decided to come to New York. How are you dealing with all this, anyway?"

Liv takes a slow, deep breath, looking around the room and contemplating her surroundings before returning her gaze to him, "It's... an adjustment, but I think I'm handling it fairly well. Then again I always did work best under immense pressure." She shrugs with one shoulder.

"Great speech as usual, brother." A voice says from behind her, and she turns and steps back to stand at Fitz' side as they're approached by a suave dark haired guy in a sharp suit. She resists the urge to sigh at the interruption. She just wants to be alone with him, whatever that may or may not entail, but she is a grown up and a professional, so she pulls on her best public smile and makes the best of it.

"Thanks, Andrew." Fitz says, grinning as they shake hands with the familiarity of old friends, "This is our lovely new prima Olivia Pope. Liv, this is Andrew Nichols; a critic for the New York Times and a fellow parolee from the Army and Navy Academy of California." His hand settles easily on her back as Liv and Andrew shake hands briefly. She finds she's not at all surprised by the idea of Fitz at military school - and admittedly a little curious about how he went from military school in California to treading the boards at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." She says, smiling politely and thinking, _sure, Fitz, Andrew Nichols is Just A critic in much the same way you're Just A ballet dancer._

"Likewise." He answers, sipping a mouthful of scotch, "My friend here hasn't stopped talking you up since he first saw you dance. I'm expecting great things."

"Good, because I have every intention of blowing you away." She returns with an easy confidence which somehow never crosses over into glibness or arrogance. Fitz can't take his eyes off her.

"You know, Miss. Pope, I heard an interesting rumour about you." He says conversationally, and Liv quirks an eyebrow, as if to say, _oh, really? Do tell. _"I heard that you coaxed Fitz back onto the boards - in front of an audience, no less. From what I hear there's even photos."

"Whoever told you that-" Fitz starts, and Andrew shifts his gaze from Liv to him.

"Mellie did." He interrupts,and the pause that follows is somehow sharper than the rest of the conversation. Liv glances between them, not entirely understanding the shift in dynamic. They're obviously good friends, but something about mentioning Fitz' ex-wife is apparently a sore spot. It makes her curious, but now is clearly not the moment to ask.

"He was teaching an idiot a lesson." Liv says to break the tension, and as Fitz looks down at her Andrew's gaze settles on them both curiously, "I think you got through to him pretty well." She says with a smile as she turns her gaze on Fitz, recalling Jake's barely better than juvenile tantrum after Fitz had thoroughly put him to shame in front of almost the entire company, and any tension that had accumulated in his frame dissipates. His fingers curl and uncurl against her back as if his fingertips are nuzzling her warm, bare skin, and their smiles turn softer, more private somehow.

"So you did dance again?" Andrew cuts in with a raised eyebrow, thinking that he'd have to be blind not to see what's clearly going on between his oldest friend and the young lady at his side.

Fitz laughs it off with a shake of his head, looking back to Andrew, "Don't get your hopes up, it won't be happening again."

"Any time soon?" He presses, as if Fitz hadn't even spoken, wondering if Olivia Pope might just be the one person who can convince Fitz to return to the stage, even if only for one final performance.

"Ever." Fitz corrects dryly, not allowing the temptation to take root.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Liv feels a large, warm, hand settle on her back. She would be alarmed and wondering who it was if it wasn't for the fact that she can smell Fitz' cologne, and as she feels his hand steal lower and around to rest over the curve of her hip she feels pure keen happiness. She turns her head to look up at him over her right shoulder, automatically smiling warmly at his presence. He's smiling back down at her, and it's almost easy to forget that they're surrounded by people on all sides.

"Let's get out of here." He says, his voice low; intimate rather than secretive.

"I think people might notice if we leave." She answers, and the soft warmth in her voice makes Fitz want to wrap his arms around her and pull her as close as he can. He's so besotted with her; whatever part of him has been stubbornly trying to remain professional and nothing more is dispersing like smoke on the wind, never to be found again. He wants her as much as he needs her, and right at this moment, he wants to be alone with her.

"Maybe." He shrugs before pointing out, "But all the other dancers here, bar one of them, have left already. People will just assume we have an early rehearsal tomorrow." She turns away from him, but she's still smiling, albeit little disbelievingly now. "I'll meet you by the coat check desk." He tells her, and she opens her mouth to answer or argue (she hasn't decided which yet), and laughs breathlessly instead. He grins, knowing that's as close to a _yes, okay, fine, you win_ as he's going to get, and heads away to make sure he's shaken all the hands he's supposed to before leaving.

The only dancer left here is, surprising no one, Abby, who's taking a breather from entertaining Congressman Charles Putney's presence by the bar, and she crosses the room to her. They've become fast friends since she moved here, surprising Liv, and she doesn't want to leave without saying goodbye. "I'm going to head out." She says when she stops at her side.

"What?" Abby asks, scandalised, "But it's your party - and it's not even one in the morning yet!"

"I know, I'm just really tired - and it's not like you need me here anyway." She says conspiratorially, thinking of the handsome if unbelievably mysterious Congressman who's presently still watching her from his table.

"Speaking of interesting hook ups," Abby says, leaning a little closer to make sure no one else hears them, "Get a load of the wicked witch and Nasty Nichols."

Liv glances in the direction she's looking in in time to see Andrew Nichols and Mellie, who she hadn't actually noticed was even here, clink their glasses together - only they're standing at a distance that few could call platonic, heads tipped closely together as they talk quietly to one another. "Who knew either one of them was capable of actual human emotion?" Abby asks her sardonically, and Liv tries not to laugh. "Anyway. You were leaving, and I was..." She trails off, glancing back in Putney's direction, "...just getting started." She finishes with a smirk, and Liv rolls her eyes.

"See you tomorrow, Abby."

Abby picks up her drink and heads back to her new friend, and Liv's heading for the door, when she hears a slightly nasally thick Texan accent say, "'Scuse me, Miss. Pope?"

She stops reluctantly in her tracks turns at the sound of someone trying to get her attention and is met with a large, older gentlemen with reddish blonde hair, and a brandy in one hand and a twenty five year old Alabama beauty queen named Brandi in the other. "I thought that was you. Our boy Grant sure do have a bee in his bonnet about you, but then he sure do know his stuff, so Brandi here and I'll be sure to check you out ourselves - September 7th, wasn't it?."

"Yes, thank you…" She trails off semi-awkwardly when she realizes she doesn't know his name, and he hands his companion his drink, extending his hand.

"Doyle. Hollis Doyle." He says with a toothy grin and narrowed eyes. She raises her hand to shake his, but he catches her fingers instead and kisses the back of her hand. "Sure is a pleasure to meet you, darlin'."

"Likewise." She answers politely, hoping he can't tell that he's making her more than a little uncomfortable – it's more the sleazy vibe he gives off than anything he's really saying or doing – and carefully extricating her hand from his clammy grip.

By the time she's managed to get away from Hollis she has to actively resist the impulse to run down the corridor to the coat check desk to meet Fitz – as flattering as it is that all these people seem to want to come up and meet her and congratulate her or tell her they're eagerly anticipating her first performance – she doesn't want anyone else to approach and ever delay their escape.

* * *

Fitz hears her heels on the marble floor and turns as he's taking his coat from the attendant. "Sorry." Liv tells him as she opens her clutch bag to take out her receipt and hands it to the attendant, "I was accosted by a man on my way out – Hollis Doyle?"

"I'm sorry to hear that." He tells her with a grimace, and she laughs in surprise, taking her coat and offering a smile of thanks to the attendant.

"You two don't get along, I take it." She says as he helps her into her coat and settles his hand at the small of her back to lead her down the marble hallway.

"There's something about him that makes me feel nauseous." He tells her, grimacing slightly as he holds open the door and they step out into the cooling night air, "I think he just like's making people feel uncomfortable - and the fact that his wife is so much younger than him is just…" He trails off, shaking his head, and she throws him an _are you kidding me right now_ look.

"Right, of course, because you're clearly so vehemently opposed to age gap relationships." She says sardonically as the arm around her back slides lower to wrap around her waist, pulling her in front of him until he can wrap both arms around her from behind, somehow never breaking his stride.

"That's different." He answers immediately, hooking his chin over her shoulder and nuzzling at her jaw, and she scoffs.

"How is it different?" She asks him disbelievingly, her hands falling to rest over his, the lines of their fingers interlocked over her stomach.

"Well, for starters, she's twenty five-"

"I'm twenty three." She counters, and he shushes her playfully with a soft bite to her ear lobe, making her giggle.

"She's twenty five and he's old enough to be _my_ Father – which makes him old enough to be _her _Grandfather." Fitz argues, "You and I are twenty two years apart, which, yes, is a big gap, but just to put this in perspective for you; Hollis Doyle was the age I am now when his wife was _born_."

"Okay, so that's creepy," Liv agrees, "But maybe he was just… waiting for the right person."

Fitz snorts, "You do realize he's been married six times, right?"

She turns her head back to look at him with an expression on her face that is a marbled mix of disbelief, revulsion and amazement, "Six?" She says, "You're telling me that Hollis Doyle, arguably the sleaziest man alive, has managed to convince not one, not two, but _six_ women to marry him?"

Fitz throws back his head and laughs before snuggling back into her, still laughing, "I know. The world never ceases to amaze." They fall into a comfortable silence then, just slowly meandering their way down the sidewalk, Fitz still walking behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist, a position that is by no means conducive to getting anywhere fast, not that either of them particularly minds the slow pace, when Liv drops her head back to rest on his shoulder.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything." He answers easily, and she gets the sense that he really means that. They haven't yet found a conversation that they can't have, and that reminder emboldens her to say what she wants to say.

"Does it bother you that I'm so much younger than you?"

Their walk slows down again, and just as slowly he moves so that whilst his right arm is still wrapped low around her waist, he's standing next to her instead to more easily have a somewhat more serious conversation with her without them both tripping over their feet at some stage. "No." He tells her simply.

"I'm serious, Fitz." She presses, her left arm rising to wrap around his waist beneath his coat, "I mean, don't you ever worry that no matter how compatible we might be, or how much we might…" She pauses, trying to decide on the right word – pretty much any word that doesn't begin with 'l' and rhyme with 'dove' - "_care _about each other," She decides on eventually, but her entire thought process is pretty much spelled out on her face for him to read, and the corner of his mouth twitches, fighting a smile of amusement, "…we might not be able to make it work just because we're at two different places in our lives?"

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, but she can tell that he isn't hesitating; it's more like he – much like she had a moment ago – is choosing how best to word his answer. "Of course it crosses my mind." He tells her eventually, "I mean, not to suggest that you don't know your own mind or anything, but like you said; you're twenty three. You're still learning and growing as a person, and no matter how much you may _care about me_," He says with amused skepticism at her wording, "One day you may well wake up and realize that you want something or someone else - or that you don't know what you want, but that being with me is stopping you from figuring it out."

She's surprised by how fast the instinct rises within her to argue with him – to tell him that he's wrong, that she knows who she is and what she wants, but she stops herself initially, waiting to see what else, if anything, he has to say. When he doesn't continue, Liv says, as neutrally as she can manage, "But those would be valid concerns if you were getting involved with someone your own age. Just because someone's older and more experienced doesn't automatically mean they're immune to changing their mind – and what about you? If you're so worried about those things, aren't you worried that getting involved with me is a waste of time?"

"No." He answers in the same tone he used before, and when she looks up at him, part questioning, part skeptical, he continues, "Livvie, whether we get married and spend the rest of our lives together or we go to bed for one night only for you to wake up the next morning and decide that you want us to just be friends… I could never consider that a waste of time." He tells her sincerely, and the simple honesty of it makes her feel warm everywhere their bodies are touching. "I mean, given the choice, I know what I'd prefer…" He teases, and she giggles, looking away. "Look, hey," He says, turning to stand in front of her and halting their movements, his arm remaining wrapped around her waist whilst his free hand rises to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear and stroking his thumb over her cheek, "I don't want to overwhelm you, Livvie," His eyes rove her face, and when he finds just enough nervousness to match his own – the kind of not wholly unpleasant nervousness that always does tend accompany the start of a new relationship the likes of which no one involved in it has ever experienced before – "But… I've never felt this way about anyone before…" His sentence hangs in the air as if unfinished, and he's breathing like she's stealing all the air from his lungs. He's looking at her like he's never wanted anything more than he wants her right at that moment, and it sends a shiver down her spine and heat rushing through her veins, and the combination is dizzying and intoxicating. She slowly stretches up, on tip toes to reach him even in stilettos, and his heart is rushing faster than he thought it ever could as he slowly leans down-

The first drop of water lands squarely on his hand, and the second streaks down the side of his face, and the rain ticks down out of the blue, gathering speed, rushing faster and faster until the drops are splashing against the sidewalk and drenching them both to the bone. They pause, and through half lidded eyes they can each see the other's slowly spreading smiles. Liv tips her head back, squinting at the cold rain falling on her face, and it takes his breath away; how exquisite she is in that moment. When she lowers her head to look at him again she's smiling so widely that she's halfway to laughing, and he's suddenly finding himself scarcely even disappointed that the moment has ended without cresting with a kiss.

"We should probably..." He gestures vaguely over his shoulder, feeling the water spill down the gap between his shirt and his skin, his hair plastered to his forehead. She's grinning up at him because she is so completely attracted to him and enthralled by him, and right then, standing in the rain with his hands on her waist and her face, she feels that same way she'd felt the first time they'd met, the same way she'd felt when she'd figured out what the purple rose had meant, only it's different this time - it's not tainted by the thought _this is crazy, this is insane, love at first sight does not happen outside of fairytales and Hollywood, __soulmates are an Other People thing to worry about, _it feels instead like the most natural thing in the world. So either she's adjusting fast to her new normal, or she's getting crazier. She finds she's oddly untroubled by both options. They are heading somewhere, somewhere amazing, and she can't wait to see where that is.


	5. With Unabashed Fervour

**AN: If you're looking for a visual reference for the routine they perform look up 'Flames of Paris Pas de Deux, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev'. Using the video on balletcollection's channel as a reference; 00:00 – 01:26 is the duet they dance together, and 01:47 – 02:46 is the part Fitz dances solo, though if you do watch it, the way Fitz dances it in this fic is more controlled/sharper and a little less frilly.**

**Just as one last thing: would anyone massively object to the rating of this story going up from T to M? Or would you guys prefer that it stay as it is? I have ideas for either way, but (despite my still highly limited experience with writing anything close to smut) I'm kind of leaning towards the former - ****I just wanted to see what you guys thought first.**

* * *

Cyrus is just sitting there, alone, in the dress circle of the darkened auditorium when it happens. He's contemplating the potentially disastrous fall out from going public with his relationship with James (and the sure fire comments regarding his hypocrisy from Fitz for dating a dancer when he'd told his friend he couldn't), interspersed with vaguely freaking out about the opening night of The Sleeping Beauty set to take place just four days from now, when he hears the doors open and close beneath him at the back of the stalls.

"We're not even supposed to be here!" The voice, female and happy, sounds a lot like Olivia Pope, and he wonders who 'we' is going to be. He can hazard a guess, but he's been wrong about this stuff before.

"I'm in charge, we can do whatever we want." Fitz' voice counters, teasing rather than overtly cocky, and Liv's laugh soars and echoes throughout the expansive space. There's a loud click as a single spotlight shines down on the stage, making the darkness surrounding it seem deeper somehow, more absolute.

"Dance for me." Fitz says, though it's not at all commanding. It sounds less like an order and more like _I love you_ and Cyrus thinks _please, God, let Mellie never find out about this, because for someone who's more than moved on herself she sure does seem to like staking a claim on Fitz._

There's a pause, and a few seconds later Liv appears, walking backwards down the aisle towards the stage. "Dance with me." She counters softly, holding her hands out in front of her body like an invitation.

"Liv." He says slowly, warning and hesitant at the same time, and Cyrus feels sure that he will refuse. He always refuses, now. Cyrus isn't sure he understands why – Fitz was one of the greatest leading male dancers in the world at the height of his career, and even now he's remembered that way, ranked on lists with Baryshnikov and Nureyev by fans and critics alike. He's a living legend, and yet he cannot seem to embrace it.

She pulls herself up so that she's sitting on the stage, with her legs dangling over the edge, crossed neatly at the knee, hands folded in her lap. "If I can give you the right answer to the question, 'why does Fitzgerald Grant always refuse to dance?', will you dance with me again?"

Cyrus sits up a little straighter, unable to imagine an ending to this conversation that isn't Fitz firing her. Fitz doesn't say anything for a moment, and because he can't see them, Cyrus doesn't know exactly what's happening-

"Deal."

_What?_ Cyrus narrows his eyes in disbelief and skepticism, nervous about the turn of the conversation (they open in less than a week and through word of mouth about Liv, it's set to be their biggest opening night in a while, so replacing her with her understudy, a talented but mousy girl by the name of Amanda Tanner, would be a real pain in the ass) though undeniably curious at the same time.

Liv's eye line never shifts, and Cyrus suspects she must be holding his gaze, and after a moment of silence she says to him, "You believe in hard work. You emphasise the importance of constant growth, teach your dancers never to allow ourselves to become complacent because there's always someone better than us waiting to take our spot, and you believe the same things for yourself. You want to learn and grow and be better. But, at the same time, you're Fitzgerald Grant. You're one of the most celebrated male ballet dancers in the world. Arguably, one of the greatest dancers of all time. And every time you dance, people exalt you. The critics love you, the fans love you, dancers worship you… you don't dance any more, because you can't reconcile the idea of always wanting to push yourself to be better than you were yesterday with the reality that you're already one of the best."

"Liv-"

She doesn't let him interrupt her though, or argue, and instead she tells him calmly, "You think that if you accept your own genius, it will go away."

_Ho-ly. Shit._

The silence stretches and stretches, Cyrus' tension rising whilst Olivia doesn't look anything less than calm. She stands up slowly and moves to stand under the spotlight. "You're wrong, you know." She tells him conversationally as she begins to turn pirouettes, her balance unwavering, "A talent like yours doesn't just… fade away. You can be legend whilst still evolving."

"What makes you so sure?" Fitz' disembodied voice asks, and goosebumps raise on Cyrus' skin when the barely audible hum of electricity can be heard – the sound which always accompanies the speakers being switched on. He reaches slowly for his camera bag, terrified that if he makes a sound, he's going to disturb the moment and through his clumsiness, it shall be lost forever. He just has a gut feeling that he's about to see an encore to their first performance together, and he can't believe his luck that he's not only here, but here with his camera when it's potentially going to happen.

"That day when we danced the Grand Pas de Deux." She tells him, switching her pirouettes to en dedans and spinning a little faster though her voice barely changes, "I've seen the pictures Cyrus took, and the video that Harrison shot. For most of the corps, that was the first time they'd ever seen you dance in the flesh, and watching it back I can see why they were so awestruck by it." She stops suddenly, tilting her body into a full arabesque en pointe, the light appearing to bend around her in deference, and tells him, "Your final performance was here, on this stage. I was twelve years old, and I was sat-" she curls her body in on itself, turning over on her leg before straightening up and pointing into one of the boxes on her left, "-up there, with my Mom," –she lowers her arm and looks back to Fitz, no longer dancing, now just stood there, looking at him- "and I remember thinking that all I wanted in the world was to be able to move the way that you did. When I watched that video of us, together… all I could think was… how is it possible, that almost eleven years since you last danced professionally, you're even better than you were that night?" She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, her voice turning softer, "Because you are. Who you are, as a person and as a dancer, far surpasses your reputation, Fitz, and I mean that in only the most complimentary sense."

A handful of moments later, Fitz pulls himself up on to the stage and walks towards her like he's in a trance. He sets his fingertips on her hips and slowly shifts his hands until they span her waist. He tips his head down as she raises her chin, and for a long, airless moment, it looks like they're going to kiss. Then, as the opening strains of Asafyev's Pas de Deux from the Flames of Paris begin to trickle from the speakers, "Just one dance." He grins at her and walks past her to the other side of the stage. Liv tips her head down, laughing briefly, before she turns to follow him.

With the music, they take a step diagonally across the stage, before launching into two jéte's followed by a grand jéte, and as Cyrus immediately begins shooting them, he sees in an instant that their performance of three weeks ago was by no means a fluke. They are seamless together, and he's already putting together a mental list of ways to convince Fitz that a curtain call on his career is entirely and completely necessary (it will not be the first time, but it will be the first time that the conversation is had whilst Fitz has the very recent memory of executing perfection with a dancer whom is clearly his match) whether it falls on deaf ears or not. The difference between watching Olivia and Fitz together and watching Olivia and Jake or James or Harrison, or Fitz and Hanna or Elena or any of his other partners back in the day, is that despite Fitz' assurances that he would only look and never touch, they clearly have the kind of chemistry that ballets are created about, let alone made better by.

The routine ends with a shoulder sit, Fitz holding her up easily and her balance unwavering in return. The music jumps to a stop, and as Liv straightens down her legs once more in anticipation of being returned to the floor, Fitz begins to lower her before seeming to change his mind. He turns her in his arms so that she's facing him instead of the audience, and chest to chest, he slowly lets her slide down his body.

Cyrus lowers the camera, knowing that watching unobserved as Liv coaxes Fitz out of retirement is one thing, but this, what he's looking at now, is something else entirely, something most definitely not for him. He can't deny that he's highly concerned about the potential fallout from this, but for now it seems to be serving as a help rather than a hindrance, so he chooses to keep his mouth shut. He puts his camera back in his bag, reminding himself to delete the last few pictures the camera had taken on rapid fire mode when he gets home, and he carefully, quietly so as not to disturb them, leaves.

* * *

Fitz isn't sure how long they stand like that, drinking each other's air and relishing this closeness they're sharing; her hands on his shoulders and his arms wrapped completely around her waist. He feels like elastic, the second before it's stretched too far and snaps, and he thinks almost desperately _I cannot wait any longer_. He sucks in a deep breath through his nose as he pitches forwards just far enough to interlock their lips. She makes a breathy little noise of pleasure against the seam of his lips at the long awaited contact, and his grip on her waist tightens without his permission as her hands climb his arms like vines to wrap around his neck._  
_

As their lips slide together his heart craves to cower behind the fortress of his ribs in the face of the feeling it invokes to kiss her finally – after three, almost four, months of watching and falling and waiting – to just kiss her and nothing else, but the fear is found in the concept of the kiss; the reality is an entirely different animal. Although, for all their talk about trying to have a relationship, if it feels this way to kiss her, it does beg the question; _can they even handle anything more?_

She makes another little sighing noise of pleasure against his mouth as his fingers spread out over her back and curl into her skin, and he thinks, _I don't know that we can, but I would sooner try and wind up being ruined by her than exist in a world where I've tasted her lips but run from her love out of foolish cowardice._

When the kiss breaks, she keeps her eyes closed for a long moment as his flicker open, and standing there looking at her in that moment, he wants the world to stop turning; to fall out of orbit and cave in on itself like a black hole just materialised out of nowhere to devour the whole planet and everyone on it just purely so that nothing less than perfection, himself included, can ever touch her soul again. He wants to tell her _look at me_ but he's not even sure he could speak if he tried. When, finally, her eyelids shift like clouds migrating over the sea to reveal the sun rising over the horizon, he's momentarily stunned by the uncertainty he finds looking back at him.

It doesn't last long, because she searches his face and whatever she finds there is clearly enough to reassure her, _yes, we're on the same page, we're in this together, yes, I felt that, too,_ because her lips curve upwards happily, and as she's smiling up at him, all traces of her disquiet appear vanquished.

"What have you done to me?" He asks, voice little more than a murmur, laced through with unabashed fervour, and so amazed is he by how much he adores her that he's actually almost relieved when she wraps her arms tighter around his shoulders and tilts forwards to hug him instead of verbalising her response. He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her, sighing with contentment and needing only to float along with her on the serenity of this moment.

He feels her eyelashes flutter against his neck, then her lips curving back up into a smile, and he mirrors her without thinking about it, "What?" He asks, feeling her hands slide down his arms as she leans back far enough that she can hold his gaze.

"I find it interesting that you chose that piece." She tells him as she backs away from him, and he doesn't move to follow her but with his eyes, and he's wearing a smirk that's less _look at me_ and more_ I can't stop looking at you_ as he folds his arms across his chest.

"Oh? And why is that?"

"You said one dance, correct?" She clarifies, crouching down at the edge of the stage and setting a steadying hand on the floor by her foot as she jumps gently down, "Because, technically, the dance doesn't end there."

"Liv-" He starts with a roll of his eyes, but she's not in the mood to let him get away with it today, and she walks a few rows further back before sitting down in the centre of the row she picks.

"Nope. You know as well as I do that there's a minute long male solo immediately after the pas." She says, taking the remote she pick pocketed from him out of her pocket and holding it up so that he can see it. "Dance for me." She dares him, putting him on the business end of his own gun, grinning rather than glaring, and he opens his mouth to argue but seems to think better of it when he finds a softness in her smile which serves to both remind and reassure him: _this is Liv, not some faceless critic, **Liv**._

"You might want to commit this to memory." He warns her, hands falling to settle on his hips, "I said one dance and I meant it. I'm one minute away from re-retiring for good."

"So you say." She grins, and he rolls his eyes and heads for the same corner of the stage where they started their pas.

"Excuse me, Mr. Grant, if you're going for full performance accuracy here, I think you're supposed to be shirtless in this particular scene." Liv calls to his retreating back, and he rolls his eyes at her.

"Livvie, don't objectify me, that's Le Corsaire not Flames of Paris." He affects to complain smartly as he walks a handful of paces forwards, tugs his shirt over his head anyway and throws it at her.

She catches it, laughing as she leans back in her seat, "Is it? My mistake."

He moves back to the back right corner of the stage, partly wondering if he can even still perform with the athleticism this piece requires, partly praying that he can given his audience.

She presses play on the remote and sits forward on the seat, leaning on the one in front of her as she watches him come to life right before her eyes. She was right before: he is even better than he was in his heyday, perhaps it's that he's missed it, perhaps he's continued to improve thanks to now spending all his time painstakingly focused on other people's ballet technique rather than constantly and brutally shredding his own, but whatever it is, he's breathtaking; from his pirouettes to his double axels to his saut de basque - and that's not even to mention the twist and flex of his muscles as he contorts his body, bending it to his will as he and Vainonen see fit, a sheen of sweat beginning to shine on his skin - and she couldn't tear her eyes away if she wanted to.

_This man,_ she thinks, standing up and moving towards him as he spins into his final position on one knee downstage left, _this incredible, beautiful man_, and she pulls herself backwards and up onto the stage across from him. He twists so that he can sit down, catching his breath more out of exhilaration than exhaustion, and he's grinning at her like a kid in a candy store.

"That felt good." Fitz says, then with a knowing expression, "And don't even think about starting with the 'I told you so's'."

"I didn't say a word." She tells him, in a tone that sounds exactly like, _but I **did** tell you so,_ matching his smile.

"Why are you so far away?" He asks her, and she smiles at him, small and private. Liv rises up on her knees and then leans forward until her hands are touching the bleached wood stage top, before crawling the short distance to him. It's not exaggerated, or trying-to-hard-to-be-sexy-to-actually-be-sexy and there's something about it; the way she moves and the way she holds his attention so effortlessly, that as she's crawling to him she's slinking beneath his skin deeper and deeper, and as soon as she's close enough he lets his hands raise to cup her face, leaning forwards to kiss her lips for the second time.

She feels his hands shift from her face soon after; sliding down either side of her neck, over her breasts and inching around her rib cage as his tongue nudges at the seam of her lips until she opens her mouth for him. Her hands move from leaning on his knees to curling around the outside of his biceps, and she feels them flex beneath her palms as he wraps his hands around the outside of her thighs and lifts her effortlessly to straddle his lap.

He's not sure how this could ever lose it's thrill, and it more than begs the question: _why did we wait so long to do this? Why have we not been doing this since we met?_ and then; _this might not be this way if we hadn't. We dragged it out and God, I'm so glad we did._

Fitz leans slowly back against the boards, taking Liv with him, her hair falling around their faces like a curtain as their lips slide together seamlessly. It's not leading anywhere; he's not about to try and get her naked here with the eyes of thousands of ghosts watching them from the empty seats, but kissing doesn't have to be a precursor to sex to feel good. He knows her heart, her soul, because he has learnt them and continues to do so every second he soaks in her presence, and he will do the same with her body because that is what she- what _they_ deserve. He will start with her lips, and her body beneath her clothes, and he will learn what makes her sigh and squirm, and he will teach her the same in return, and then, when dragging it out becomes too much for them again, then and only then will they give in.

Love; real, true love, deserves to be savoured – and he plans to enjoy it thoroughly, and to give her the chance to do the same because he loves her, he loves her, he loves her, so damn much that he almost feels ashamed for ever having used the word to describe his feelings for anyone before he met her.

Her tongue is soft and inquisitive against his, whilst his hands are bold and effortless over her body, and the combination is dizzyingly delicious; like running your thumb over a cold glass on a hot day to catch the condensation before it hits the table, and when the kiss slowly breaks apart they break out into matching smiles - no uncertainty to be found, this time around.

"Hi." Fitz says, just to break the silence, one hand on her back and the other cupping her cheek.

"Hi." Liv answers breathlessly.

"Are you hungry?" He asks her out of the blue, no real double meaning meant.

"Starving." She answers with a wicked grin, not entirely so innocent.

He smirks back at her, "I meant for food, naughty girl." He says, biting playfully at her jaw, making her hands curl tighter into his chest where they rest.

"So did I." She tells him, all faux innocence and doe eyes now, "What did you think I meant?"

Fitz shakes his head at her, still grinning though admittedly a little more wryly now as he considers that Liv might be a little less patient than he when it comes to his determination to drag out this phase of their relationship, too - a thought that, admittedly, makes him feel more than a little smug that clearly she wants him every bit as much as he wants her - "What I think _I_ meant was; it's high time that you and I went on a real date, don't you think?"

She pulls a face that says _Wow I really didn't see this coming, _and says, "Well, I mean, I don't know, Fitz, this is really out of the blue-"

She gasps, partly with now-genuine surprise and partly with laughter as he flips them over so that she's on her back beneath him; one of his hands cushioning the back of her head so that it doesn't hit the floor, the other catching her hands and pinning them down over her head. "Go to dinner with me tonight." He dares her rather than demands, lips scant inches from hers, and her breathlessness is now nothing to do with laughter at all. Her legs are draped around his hips, his body looming over hers, and he has a moment where his mind catches up with his body, _what are you doing-_

And then, a second before he pulls away and apologises profusely for being so forward, she breathes, "It's a date."


	6. A Little Close To Home

**AN: Wooow, so I don't know what I was expecting, but apparently you guys are really, you know, surprisingly okay with the story moving up to an M rating. Which is totally weird because obviously no one reads fanfic for the sexy parts, right? LOL. I should've predicted that. Anyway. I hope it doesn't suck? And please feel free to uh, constructively criticize if you think it does. HashtagPleaseDontHurtMyDelicateFeeFees**

**Okay, so returning to my non-chronological thing, this chapter is set in around March, so like... nine months after they met, and six-ish months since the last chapter. Also, just in case it's not clear, this isn't the first time they have sex.**

* * *

_"__So when do I get to meet your parents?"_

_"__You don't." Liv answers calmly, one hand in his and the other buried in her pocket against the cold, no confrontation in her tone, so he tries not to hear it there himself._

_"__Because they're not around anymore or because you don't want me to meet them?" Fitz asks, watching her carefully._

_"__Yes."_

_He doesn't take his eyes off of her, feeling an odd sense of unease in his stomach._

_"__Liv…" He begins slowly, and she looks up at him to meet his gaze for the first time since he brought up the idea._

_"__No." She tells him, still eerily calm, "I love you, but this isn't up for discussion. Okay?"_

_"__No." He blurts in return as he stops walking, __"I don't- why don't you want them to meet me?"_

_"__Stop pushing." She warns him, and the unease trembling in his system begins to solidify, to warp, becoming frustration edged with fear._

* * *

Their first fight comes out of nowhere and trips them both up spectacularly, largely thanks to the fact that neither one of them sees it coming. They are so in love, and so on the same page, that they somehow hadn't entirely considered that there would be topics on which they didn't see eye to eye. But no matter how much it might feel like it from time to time, their love does not exist on the pages of a romance novel or a silver screen script, and therefore cannot be entirely without fault.

It begins so innocuously (_"My Father's coming to town so I can't see you tonight."_) that by the time they notice they're fighting, it's too late to stop it. By the time they're standing ten feet apart at opposite ends of the glow of a streetlamp and Fitz is yelling, "You know everything about me, and meanwhile you're just this bundle of dirty little secrets!" he can't honestly even _remember_ how it started in the first place, just that it did, and now he doesn't know how to backtrack and turn this into a calm, level headed discussion instead.

"Just because there's things you don't know about me doesn't mean that those things are secrets – or that I owe you my entire life story just because we're having sex!" Liv scoffs, spitting the last part like poison.

His entire thought process crashes to a shuddering halt, and his face twists into a mask of disbelief for a second before he shakes his head and fires back, "Don't belittle us! It's insulting and beneath you and designed to drive me away." taking a handful of paces towards her until she rolls her eyes and turns around, stalking away from him, but he follows her, speeding up until he catches up, "I'm not going away!" He tells her insistently, moving so that he's in front of her, blocking her path.

She makes a contemptuous noise in the back of her throat, attempting to turn away and go back the way she came, but he grabs her waist and pulls her back to him, "Stop trying to run away, and _talk to me_."

"About what?" She demands, "Really, Fitz, if all there is to me is a 'bundle of dirty little secrets' what the hell do you want to talk to me about? **What's** the point?"

"Tell me why you seem to want to keep me at arms length half the time." He tells her, in the exact same tone, surprising her, "Tell me how I can be so completely consumed by you that I can't sleep or breathe without you whilst somehow knowing next to nothing about who you are? About your life before we met?" His eyes are wide, his grip almost bruisingly tight as he stands completely and entirely in her personal space, towering over her. But he doesn't scare her, never really has, so she holds her own with ease, chin tipped up like she's itching for a fight, "Tell me!" He demands through gritted teeth. She clenches her jaw and breaks his gaze. "Liv_-"_ She struggles out of his arms, pushing him away hard enough that he stumbles two steps back to make him let go, "_Liv!_"

"Leave me alone." She throws sharply over her shoulder, folding her arms around her waist and walking away with her head down.

"Go on then, walk away." He yells at her retreating back, "That is apparently what you do best after all!"

She stops in her tracks, but doesn't turn around.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I hit a little close to home?" He asks in frustration, still yelling and gesticulating wildly with his arms, "I know I'm being honest and we – apparently - don't really do that with each other but-"

"Shut up." She tells him as she turns back to face him, voice more air than sound though it still somehow sounds like screaming, "You're so- just stop talking."

He's not sure whether she's going to tear off his clothes or his head, but as she storms back towards him, shoves him backwards until his shoulder blades connect with the cold metal street lamp behind him, he has a sneaking suspicion which it might be.

* * *

The second they get through the door to his apartment, he backs her up against it, using their combined momentum to slam it closed. They kiss as furiously as they'd fought earlier, teeth scraping over each other's mouths as, unable to wait any longer and in no mood to do this with patience, he pops her up so her legs wrap around his waist with one hand and undoes his belt and pants with the other. He hikes up her dress, tears off her underwear, and sheaths himself inside her in one stroke.

She's clutching at his back, fingers scratching at his wool coat, barely even able to moan the way she needs to because she can't draw enough breath to make the sound. He sets a punishing pace, the closed door rattling in it's frame and her soul rattling around inside her body with the force of it.

He's chasing the intimacy she had denied him earlier, trying to convince himself that this is the same, that her allowing him to be inside her body is the same as her letting him into her mind because as far as he was aware, as long as they've known each other they've never put up barriers, never tried to hide things from one another, and if they're having sex, raw, skin on skin sex, then there still isn't. He realizes the flaw in that logic as soon as it comes to him, because much like there's an intimacy to fighting with someone that had been tempered by her reluctance to engage with his real concern, there's an intimacy to sex which is being similarly tempered by the fact that they're both still fully dressed, and neither one is speaking – they're not even saying each other's names, just gasping out choked off moans and breathing harshly into each other's mouths.

They've never had bad sex, and this isn't bad per se, but whilst pleasurable it's not pleasant. He knows it's not going to solve anything, but he wants to make her shatter. He wants to make her lose control, to drag that moment of almost unparalleled vulnerability from her because whilst he apparently doesn't know how to get her to open up as well as he'd thought he did, this he knows like the back of his hand.

He tears open the top of her dress, a few buttons flying off in the process, to kiss and bite at her chest and her throat, and in response her head slams back against the door, her fingernails digging into the side of his neck, making both of them moan loudly.

"Fitz-" She begs, tasting metal on her tongue full of static, and the second Liv breaks that first barrier, he can't stop himself from following after her, seeking to break the rest.

"Look at me," He hisses through gritted teeth, needing to look in her eyes, "Look at me, look at me, please-"

Her eyes snap open at the way his voice wavers around the word _please_, and it's like someone let all the air back into the room at once. His hips grind to a halt, and her clawing grip on his neck slackens some, her hands sliding around to tangle in his hair. His heart is beating out of control, and he can feel hers doing the same alongside his own, and he thinks, much the way he had the first time he had danced for her alone; six months ago in the empty Lincoln Center, _this is Liv._ The thought is quickly followed by the realization; _this is __**Liv**__, my Liv, the love of my life. We are not going to fall apart just because there are things she isn't ready to tell me yet._

His knees suddenly feel like jello, so he turns them around and slides down the door, never disconnecting from her. Where initially, he'd been the one driving into her with little abandon and controlling the pace of their movements, in this position he can hardly move at all. Liv takes over seamlessly though, rocking her hips against his so slow and so perfect that it makes his skin tingle.

With harsh breathing and needy hands clutching one another ever closer, out of love and need rather than desperation and anger this time however; Liv's fingers spread in his hair as he kisses and sucks at her neck, one of his hands cupping her butt to help her move whilst the other rests between their bodies, his thumb tattooing circles around her clit.

His anger ebbs as their shared pleasure rises; molten, panic driven, vitriol replaced by saccharine sweetness that rubs his heart raw. Her voice is cracking and gasping out the words, "Fitz, I'm sorry," as she moves a little faster like all that panic of his hadn't disappeared, just bled into her instead, "I love you, I love you, I'm sorry, I love you-"

Her whole body tenses up in his arms, her walls fluttering around him as she gasps raggedly for air, and it only takes a handful more shifts of their hips before he joins her in ecstasy.

With his ears ringing and his shirt sticking to his back, the moment freezes time in it's tracks, and he slowly slides both arms around her waist to hold her close. Her hands leave his hair to wind around his shoulders, and with their faces buried in each other's necks, it feels like an age before they can breathe again.

* * *

"We can't solve fights with sex." He tells her, voice pitched quietly, and further muffled where his lips drag over the ball of her shoulder. When they'd both calmed down enough to regain all their faculties, he'd slowly eased her up off of him before getting to his feet and, when she'd stumbled, swept her up into his arms without bothering to try and fix their disheveled clothing. They'd showered together, washing each other's skin with careful, soft strokes until the jagged edges of it all had been smoothed and allowed the chance to begin to heal, and she'd kissed him; sweet and loving and _I am sorry._ The kiss hadn't escalated, merely soothed, and once they'd dried off, they'd curled up in his bed sans clothes.

"I know." She whispers back, and her voice sounds so small that he wants to find a way of crawling inside her mind to shield her from whatever it is that hurts her so badly she won't even talk about it with him – he who she knows loves her completely and infinitely and unconditionally.

"I don't want to force you to tell me things if those things hurt you to talk about." He says, propping himself up on his hand, elbow pressed into the gap between their pillows, "I don't- I want you to feel like you can talk to me."

"I do feel like that." She tells him immediately, "I know you wouldn't judge me for any of it, I just… I don't want you to know, because of that."

She can see on his face that he doesn't understand, and she shakes her head before rolling onto her back, looking across at him with such vulnerability in her eyes that he almost wishes he'd never brought it up. "I don't like to talk about it. I've never talked about it, with anyone."

"Okay." He tells her, wanting to reassure her but also trying to show that he's highly concerned by what could possibly be so bad that she can't even think of telling him. "Okay, so let's talk about something else. Like… like the fact that your loan contract with us ends in four months."

"And you want to know what I want to do about that." She infers calmly. He nods, and Liv sighs. "It doesn't matter what I want. Reston will never let me leave completely."

"You let me worry about Reston." Fitz says, the disparagement in his tone directed squarely at her former boss rather than at her, "I told you. If you want to be in New York, I'll make it happen, I'll fight for you, but only if that's what you want."

"Of course I _want_ to be here." She sighs, with an odd undertone of lamentation in her voice as she curls herself into his body to hide her face. She doesn't want to talk about anything any more, because her soul feels like a pressure cooker; two seconds away from telling him every little detail of her life from the horrific to the sublime and everything in between-

"Liv, you're shaking." He says, voice a hairsbreadth from outright alarmed as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her closer, "Shh, hey, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you, it's okay, baby, I'm sorry-"

"No, I'm sorry," She tells him, her frustration falling entirely on her own shoulders as she grips at his, "I just-"

_I just feel like my life isn't mine to control right now, and that's not fair._

_I just can't cope with the idea of telling you about my life and having you look at me differently, like I'm someone to be pitied and coddled._

_I just wish that I could find a way to be as fearless about this conversation as I feel when I'm spinning fouettes en pointe in front of a sold out audience, or when I'm in your arms-_

"Don't let go of me." She tells him, thinking that if they stay like this, safe and intertwined, and she doesn't have to look at him while she speaks, she might just may be able to get through this story for the first time intact.

"I won't. I've got you, Liv." He promises her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and she takes a deep breath.

"My Father is not a subject I discuss." She tells him after pausing to gather her thoughts, "To tell you the truth, most of the time, it doesn't feel like I have a Father at all."

"You're estranged." He guesses, and she nods. This time, he doesn't push her.

"He's... cruel. I grew up desperately seeking his approval whilst simultaneously knowing I was never going to get it. My Mom was... she wasn't a very good Mother, to be honest, but she tried. She was this young socialite when she and My Father met, I was the surprise that kept her there when she ordinarily probably would have left. She knew how much I loved ballet and she made sure that I got the training I needed and she encouraged me when I didn't believe in myself, and then when she died for some reason my Father tried to force me to stop."

"What happened to her?" He asks, and she sighs deeply.

"Plane crash. I don't know all the details, just that she was on some rich guy's private jet. It was just the two of them, plus the people working on it when it went down." Liv explains succinctly, "So really, it's not hard to guess. I don't know if she was just cheating on Eli or if she was leaving us for him, and I never will. I don't even know if he knows, to be honest."

"I'm sorry." He tells her, meaning it, knowing all too well the pain of losing your mother at a young age only to be left with a Father who had no business co-raising a child, let alone being the sole guardian of three of them, as was the case in his experience.

"My dance teacher at the time found out what was going on and agreed to keep teaching me in secret. I auditioned for Reston when I was seventeen and they accepted me for the start of the following season. When I told my Dad he physically threw me out of the house with just the clothes on my back."

"Physically." Fitz echoes slowly, and she feels him tense slightly, "Did he put his hands on you a lot?"

"He was a big believer in corporal punishment." Liv shrugs, "That's not really that uncommon though."

Fitz is well aware that he's fairly... hard line when it comes to judging people's parenting skills, particularly Fathers, and he knows that it's largely down to a deep running bias created by the issues he had with his own Father, (and to some extent, still struggles with even two months after his death and going on fifteen years since they'd last properly spoken) but he's reasonably confident that his immediate anger and dislike for Liv's Father is completely justified. He's suddenly glad that she didn't want them to meet - he'd have probably taken the guy's head off. For the guy not only have abused Olivia, but have her so twisted up about it that she thinks it's okay? That all parents hit their kids so she can't be upset about it? What the fuck kind of parent does that?

"Look at me." He says, and she doesn't. "Livvie. Look at me." He repeats, and slowly, hesitantly, she does. "No matter what he told you, it's never okay to hit a kid." He tells her, trying to keep the fierce anger out of his voice but not wholly sure that he accomplishes it, "There are laws against it for a reason."

"But he never broke the law." She tells him almost sardonically, but with an edge of belief, "He was very clear about that."

It takes him a second to even begin to process that.

"Liv. If it's still causing you emotional pain even after you're out of his reach, it's most definitely abuse, and most definitely illegal. But legal or not, Liv, you didn't deserve it. You didn't."

She sighs deeply, dropping her head back to rest on his shoulder, and there's a long pause before she says, "I- I know." She pauses again, and then tells him, "He wants me to have dinner with him the day after tomorrow. I don't want to go."

"So don't." He tells her, like it's the simplest thing in the world, "It's Sunday so everyone's got the day off. We'll go to the theatre and rehearse instead."

"He's not going to let me get away with that." Liv says, shaking his head, "He's not the kind of guy who hears 'no' very often, if ever."

"It's late." Fitz points out, glancing down at his watch, "If you call him now I doubt he'll pick up. Leave him a message and tell him you can't make it."

She looks up at him unsurely, mouth opening and closing slightly as she internalises the argument she doesn't want to have with him. He just waits this time, now having a far clearer idea of how she reacts to someone trying to drag information from her she's not ready to give. After a long moment, the corners of her mouth begin to quirk before finally breaking into a real smile, and it reminds him of right after he'd kissed her for the first time. "You're right." She tells him, "I'm going to call him."

She leans over him to reach for her phone on the bedside cabinet that is becoming more hers the more times she stays here, and he smiles as he watches her dial, skating his fingers down her bare back. She smiles over her shoulder at him at the sensation, thinking that she couldn't be happier to be with him. She's never been around someone who makes her feel so safe, and loved and valued and respected as he does every day. She can only hope she does the same for him.

* * *

Both Eli and Fitz (and Liv, too, come to that) get the shock of their lives when, two days later, Eli knocks on the door to Liv's apartment, and Fitz is the one who opens it. They look at one another in silence for a moment. Fitz has never seen a picture of Liv's Father, but he's willing to guess that's who he's looking at, whilst Eli has absolutely no idea who Fitz is. He glances at the door to check the number.

"Sorry, I must have the wrong address." He says, shortly polite, taking a square of paper out of the inside pocket of his immaculately tailored suit to check the address he has written down.

"Are you Eli Pope?" Fitz asks, and Eli looks back up at him sharply.

"Who wants to know?" He asks, now eyeing the man in what is clearly Olivia's doorway appraisingly.

"I'm Fitz." He says, a hairsbreadth from outright cold, "I'm Liv's boyfriend."

"Is that right?" Eli asks skeptically, moving past Fitz without waiting for an invitation and stepping into the apartment. Fitz raises his eyebrows slightly and shuts the door, sensing that this probably isn't going to be a particularly quiet - or short - conversation.

"She's in the bedroom." Fitz tells him instead of answering, "We were just about to head out."

Eli steps around the room, surveying the place as though it's beneath him as the bedroom door opens and Liv steps out, dressed for the evening rehearsal they're meant to leave for soon. They both turn when they hear the door, and Liv glances back and forth between them.

"You're not dressed." Eli comments, gesturing to her casual attire, "Are you trying to make us miss our reservation?"

"I left you a message." Liv tells him, folding her arms across her chest, "I'm not going."

"You have something better to do?" Eli asks smartly.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." She answers, "What are you even doing here?" She demands, "We've not spoken in years, what do you want?"

"I-" He stops, glancing at the polaroids held onto the fridge with magnets, showing her and Fitz and her friends both here and back in DC, "I wasn't expecting this."

"This?" She says slowly, following his eye line as it shifts to the bag of her ballet gear open on the floor a few feet from behind her. "Did you come here to gloat?" She asks finally, eyes narrowed, "Did you just assume that I'd failed and come here to rub it in my face?"

"Like you said. We haven't spoken in a long time. I was curious about how you were doing so I tried to find you in DC but I found out you'd left. It was only natural to assume you'd finally given up on your childish fantasy."

"It's not a fantasy." She tells him shortly, "It's my life. You need to leave or we're going to be late."

"Get changed, we're going to dinner." Eli demands, refusing to back down.

"No."

Eli's jaw tenses at her refusal, and he takes a malice filled step towards Liv. Fitz immediately steps between them with his back to Olivia. "Go downstairs and get us a cab." He tells her, "I'm right behind you."

He's expecting her to argue, to be angry with him for stepping in when things got difficult like he thinks she can't defend herself, but the fact is, it wasn't like Eli wanted a closer look at her. Every line of his body and face told Fitz that his intentions were far more sinister than that, and he will not, _cannot_, stand back and watch her be hurt. No way, not a chance. He's surprised when he hears the movement of her bag, and then a few seconds later, feels her small hand on his side, a brief and private _I'll see you soon._

"Don't you walk out of here, young lady-" Eli starts harshly, turning his body towards the door as Liv leaves, but Fitz once again shifts so that he's between them.

"You're done here." He advises Eli firmly, leaving no room for any kind of misunderstanding.

"I'm done here when I say I am." Eli shoots back, "She's a pampered little princess, my daughter, it was a natural assumption that she'd fail and quit."

"Maybe you should've actually come to a show and watched her dance." Fitz suggests, tone laced with judgment, "She's incredible."

"I don't need to waste the three hours it would take to do that to know that she doesn't belong there."

"Then you don't know her at all, let alone not as well as you think you do." Fitz counters, "She's a natural born dancer, and easily one of the most promising young prima ballerina's to join the national circuit in years."

"Speaking of young," Eli say, tone dripping with acidic derision, "What the hell is a man your age doing messing around with a girl in her early twenties?"

"We're not messing around." Fitz tells him, leaving no room for misinterpretation, "I'm in love with your daughter, and by some fluke she loves me back."

"And how long do you think that's going to last, exactly?" He asks, as if simultaneously angry and amused, "How long before she gets bored of you, or you move on to the next flavor of the month?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." Fitz tells him, feeling his remaining patience slipping away, "And after all this time, you don't have the right to show up out of the blue and question her choice of relationship – or her choice of anything, for that matter."

"Oh, but I most definitely do. She might be a spoilt ungrateful little bitch but she's still my child-"

"You want to shut your mouth," Fitz warns darkly, "Or I'll shut it for you."

"That's real tough talk from a guy who I'm guessing used to wear tights for a living." Eli mocks derisively, and Fitz thinks _I have been training my body to perfection since I was in elementary school because the profession you so casually dismiss as frilly and easy demands nothing less than perfection from those who dare to attempt it. My body is 200lbs of pure muscle and I bench half that again with ease. Beating your pathetic ass to a pulp for speaking about Livvie that way would be child's play._ But, he's a grown man and this isn't a pissing contest, so instead of saying any of that, he smiles.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with, Eli. And make no mistake, from now on; it will be me you deal with. Liv has made herself clear. She doesn't want anything more to do with you, and when it comes to me what she wants, she gets. Consider this your final warning." Eli opens his mouth to argue, but Fitz shakes his head, "You and I are going to walk downstairs now, I'm going to put you in a cab, and then you're going to leave and never contact her again. Am I clear?"

"What if she contacts me first?"

"Then that's entirely her decision, but I can assure you, she won't."

They stare each other down for a long moment, before finally Eli says through gritted teeth, "After you."

"I insist." Fitz counters, shouldering his bag as he opens the door for Eli to step through. They take the elevator down to the street, and Fitz' eyes never leave him as they walk to a nearby cab. Fitz closes the door for him once he's inside and says, "I meant what I said earlier. Stay away from her."

He doesn't bother to give Eli the chance to respond, just turns and walks away. He glances around, trying to figure out which of the cabs parked on the street is the one with Liv in the back of it, but the door of the middle one opens and she steps out, looking straight at him. He moves to her side and they wrap their arms around each other tightly. He's not wholly convinced that they've seen the last of her Father, but if he comes back, fine. They'll deal with it, Fitz and Olivia, together.


	7. Baggage: Part I

**Set towards the end of January, around two months before the argument in chapter six. For those of you who are awaiting an update for The Pressure of Cheating Death, I'm sorry it's been a while, but I've been battling a (not so) little dose of writer's block of late. I'm working on the next update (chapter 36) and I'm hoping to have that up in the next week or so. Part II of this chapter should be up soon, also.**

**I was just about to post this when it occurred to me that it might seem kind of insensitive to post this right after TG just lost his Father in real life, I really hope that it doesn't and I'm so sorry if it does, it's been almost written for over a month, I just managed to finish it today and I didn't want to delay updating for even longer whilst I wrote something else.**

* * *

**_Fitz:  
_**_I hate to do this via text message, but I was wrong. I can't do this without you. I can't talk, but I really need you here, Livvie._

Liv has read his message so many times since she received it that she's lost count. Her heart had skipped a beat when she'd first read it, thinking that clearly as badly as he'd thought it would most likely go; Fitz had lowballed.

Then again, his Father's funeral was never going to be an easy or pleasant experience.

She'd offered to go with him, but in much the same way that she's not particularly keen on the idea of him meeting her Father, he'd refused. "I'll be fine," He'd told her, nodding, though it was clear to her that he didn't entirely believe that, "His funeral is on the Tuesday and then his will is being read on the Thursday. I'll be back here by Saturday morning, if all goes to plan."

"What's the plan?" She'd asked.

"Bury the bastard, sign whatever they want me to and get back here to you as quickly as possible." He'd sighed.

She'd just had some kind of gut instinct that it wasn't going to be that simple, and she'd watched as he'd gotten quieter and- sadder is the wrong word. It was like all the energy, all the light, was draining out of him as the time to leave for the airport had gotten closer and closer. They'd stood in the departure hall for a long time, just stood there with their arms wrapped around one another, kissing to both soothe and procrastinate his leaving.

"I'll see you when I get back." He'd told her finally, tipping his head to kiss her lips one last time. His hands had slipped from her face, and hers from his waist as he'd stepped away and walked across the hall towards security without looking back. She'd watched him until she couldn't see him any more, swallowed the ridiculous lump in her throat, and then headed back outside to hail a cab and head to the studio. If she'd gone home she would've just sat around worrying about him, anyway.

**_Liv:  
_**_I'm at baggage claim. I should be through arrivals in the next ten minutes. x_

**_Fitz:  
_**_Traffic was bad, just heading inside now. Terminal 4, right?_

**_Liv:  
_**_Right. X_

She drops her phone back into the front pocket of her purse, knowing that she'll check it incessantly until she sees him if she doesn't, which will most likely distract her sufficiently enough that she'll do something frustratingly time consuming like miss her suitcase going around the conveyor belt. Thankfully that doesn't happen and she grabs it on its first pass, wheeling it towards the arrivals hall.

His message asking her to come out to LA had arrived on Tuesday night, right after the funeral. He hadn't wanted to get into it, but it clearly hadn't gone well. Liv isn't sure this is the best way for her to meet his family, but by all accounts they don't get along anyway. She's far more concerned with making sure that Fitz is okay than what they might think of her. Perhaps that's selfish, but when she'd raised the idea with Fitz he'd just texted back _Don't worry about them. __I adore you._

Her eyes scan the various crowds of people as she steps into the cavernous room, and she keeps walking forwards as she searches until she sees him. He's looking at an arrivals board with his hands in the pockets of his dark blue jeans, and though he's as handsome as ever it's clear he's barely slept since he left. Liv changes direction and heads towards him. Fitz looks back down at the sound of approaching heels and suitcase wheels, and he looks nothing but completely relieved to see her.

He turns and slides his arms around her waist as soon as she's close enough, pulling her flush against his body and pulling her up just enough that he only has to tip his head to rest in the crook of her neck. Leaving her case on the ground at her side she wraps her arms around his shoulders and holds him just as closely in return.

"God, I missed you so much." Fitz breathes against her neck, and she thinks _I should've just come with you in the first place. We've barely been apart since we met; your Father's funeral wasn't the time to see how well we handled it._

* * *

"No Grant today?" Harrison asks, stretching out his hamstrings.

"Mr. Grant had a family emergency and had to go out of town." Tom Larsen, one of the company's répétiteurs explains, "Nothing to worry about for you guys. If you're all ready we're going to work on the Mouse Scene today, Amanda, Olivia is out for today and tomorrow, so you'll be dancing in her place until she gets back."

"Liv's out too?" Harrison says, opening his mouth to ask if she's alright, but before he can get the words out he feels a sharp elbow point dig into his ribs. "Ow, what the-"

"Shh!" Abby says as he turns to look at her with a _no really, what the hell was that for and why are you glaring at me like that_ expression, "I'll tell you later."

"You better." He mutters, rubbing at the impact point, "That hurt."

It's not until the end of their next rehearsal that they get a chance to talk, although their 'talk' starts out as less of a conversation and more of an ambush. "What is wrong with you? Abby hisses in his ear and he turns away from the notice board he was looking at to face her.

"Me?" He asks skeptically, "I'm not the one who assaulted someone for trying to ask if a friend was alright."

"Oh." Abby says, the _I'm going to fucking kill you_ look on her face lessened by her surprise, "I thought you were going to make a joke about how they've been hooking up, which would've been a dick move since they're still trying to keep it hush hush."

Harrison blinks at her, before staring at her like she's lost her marbles, "Wait, wait, back up- they're doing it?" Harrison asks, brows raised, "The robot and the DC Princess are doing the nasty on the sly?"

"You really didn't know?" She asks, and his face never changes. "Oops. Well, anyway, they're doing it." Abby answers, her voice turning gleeful.

"I call bullshit." Harrison argues skeptically, shaking his head, "I mean, obviously he's gaga for her but so are half the dudes here. Just because they're both out on the same day doesn't mean they're _A Thing_."

"True, but what about the fact that I was in the security office the other day getting a new ID card and on one of the CCTV monitors I saw them making out before disappearing into his office for twenty minutes?" She asks smugly, quirking an eyebrow as if to say _what else you got?_

"How do you know they were in there for twenty minutes?" He asks, not wholly sure he wants an answer.

"Because I kept asking the security guy stupid questions to stay in there to see how long they were gone." Abby answers, like _duh_, "I literally saw them with my own eyes."

"I aint believing a word you say until I see it with _my_ own eyes." Harrison argues stubbornly, "New girl is _way_ to goody goody to have a sordid affair with the teacher."

* * *

They drive back to the Grant house hand in hand, intermittently exchanging glances the whole way, though they don't say much. They don't drop hands until Fitz pulls up to the house, and even then they do so reluctantly.

"Wow." Liv says as she closes the car door, and he looks over the roof of his car at her not because of the frequent reaction to the house, but because of the way she says it. There's no awe in her voice; no excitement. It's almost critical, and after a pause she says, "You really grew up here?" The house is beautiful, no question about it, but it's beautiful in much the way an ancient marble statue might be; it's artwork, to be looked at but never touched, and though it might make you feel something, it will never love you back even if you can manage to love it warmly in the first place.

"You don't want the full tour then?" He asks, offering her a crooked smile as he shoulders the strap on her suitcase and closes the trunk.

"Maybe breakfast first?" She asks, as he rounds the car and wraps his free arm around her small waist so that she's tucked under his arm. She wraps her left arm around his back, resting her head on his shoulder as he leads her into the house.

"What are you in the mood for?" He asks her as they step inside.

"Pretty much anything that tastes better than airplane food."

"Well, you set a high bar, Ms. Pope, but I'll see what I can do." He teases, feeling better already just thanks to her presence, he closes the door behind them and sets her bag down on the bench seat along the wall to his left. She glances around the foyer, gaze rising to the pitched high ceiling before she looks back to him. "Kitchen's just through here."

"Lead the way." Liv says, tipping her head back to look up at him. He loves the way she fits against him like this, and he smiles down at her as he takes her into the kitchen, leaning towards her to press a kiss to her temple. He can't keep his eyes or hands off of her. He's known that he's been in love with her for a long time now, almost as long as he's known her – loved her in the safe sense, that is. He knew the second that he laid eyes on her that she was the one, but it wasn't until she moved to New York two months later that he realised that there was nothing spur of the moment about it. She was the one he'd been waiting all his life for. They had run into each other whilst she was out buying some things for her new place and he'd helped her get it all back to her apartment. They'd wound up spending the rest of the day together and he'd left hating every step he took that took him another step away from her, but with the most ridiculous, happy grin on his face all the same.

Here and now, she's standing to his right, dipping bread into egg to make french toast whilst he melts the butter in the pan, and he's well aware that he probably shouldn't be smiling this much given that it's the day after his Father's funeral, but he can't help it. He's just happy that she's here.

"What?" She says, almost shyly when she looks up and catches him already watching her.

"Nothing." Fitz answers easily as she puts the last slice on the plate, still looking up at him, and he can't explain why it hits him then, just that it does. It's the realisation that this is it; this is what he wants for the rest of his life.

Liv turns around to wash her hands in the sink, and he turns the heat down on the stove and moves to stand behind her. He wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face in the crook of her neck.

"Someone's clingy today." She says, only her voice is all warmth and no disparagement.

"I missed you." He tells her for the second time since she arrived, only this time it's an explanation instead of an admission, "I should've just admitted that I wanted you here from the start."

"I'm here now." She tells him, putting the hand towel down on the counter and raising her hand back to bury in his hair. He slowly turns her around so that he can kiss her properly, but it's slow and gentle; seeking comfort as much as he's seeking closeness. He moves them slowly backwards until she's pressed against the counter, and, smiling, he picks her up by the waist and sets her down on top of the counter. His hands splay out over her thighs, as her fingers slide over his shoulders, and he leans in to kiss her again. She captures his bottom lip between her own, and curling his hands around the backs of her knees, he pulls her closer to the edge of the counter, and closer to him. It's only been two days since they last saw one another, yet it feels like an age. Their lips and their bodies move in sync; unhurried but persistent, craving more than this but taking what they can get in the moment.

Liv breaks the kiss quickly when her eyes open momentarily and land upon a man stood in the doorway with a deer in the headlights expression on his face.

"Sorry." He says quickly, "I didn't mean to interrupt- I'll just go-"

He looks so much like Fitz that they're practically twins, though he's at least four inches shorter; smaller in general thanks to his skinny frame. His hands are buried deep in the pockets of his too-big jeans, his shoulders slightly hunched inside his crumpled shirt. His curly hair is longer and a little lighter than Fitz', messier, too, giving him a general air of dishevelment like he'd slept in the clothes he's wearing.

"No, Ben, it's okay." Fitz says, stepping back but helping Liv down with a steadying hand. "This is Liv, my girlfriend." He says, moving to stand beside her, "Livvie, this is my little brother, Ben."

"Nice to meet you." Ben says with a half smile, not entirely cured of the awkwardness yet. Liv suspects it might be permanent. "Also, I'm thirty seven, Fitzgerald; less of the 'little'."

"Well, I'm the oldest, _Benjamin,_ so I'll call you what I want and you'll like it and hope that I don't beat you up and steal your lunch money." Fitz throws back, and Liv laughs whilst Ben just rolls his eyes, clearly having heard this all before.

"We were making french toast, if you want to join us?" Liv offers, looking quickly up at Fitz with a smile before looking back at Ben.

"I- no, that's okay, I don't want to intrude-"

"It'll be like old times." Fitz shrugs, kissing Liv's temple before he turns back around to face the stove, "Me taking care of you and generally doing all the work."

"Don't let Mike hear you say that." Ben says, moving to sit down at the table, the frying pan in front of Fitz hissing as he drops the first couple of pieces of uncooked french toast into the pan.

"Mike." Fitz says almost derisively, thinking of his younger brother who is a near carbon copy of their now-deceased Father, "He wouldn't know a hard days work if it walked up naked and punched him in the face."

"Could you two maybe stop beating the shit out of each other for long enough to have an actual conversation?" Ben asks dryly.

"I'll stop when he does."

"You're the oldest." Ben argues as Liv sits down across from him, "And Mike is like a walking, talking dictionary definition for middle child syndrome."

Fitz just barely resists the urge to roll his eyes, "If you tell me to be the bigger man you're not getting any breakfast."

"You were pretty much _brawling_," Ben reminds him instead, "At Dad's _funeral_."

"What happened?" Liv asks, concerned, wondering if that had been the tipping point that made him decide to ask her to come out here, and Fitz and Ben exchange a loaded look before he turns back to plate up the French toast, and sets it down on the table between them all.

"It turns out we have a brother. Another one." Fitz says, picking up the bottle of maple syrup and moving to sit down next to Liv and across from Ben.

"Half brother." An indignant voice interjects from the doorway, and Liv looks up to be faced with the guy who is clearly the middle Grant brother, Michael. He's shorter than both of them, stocky with short, straight hair and a California tan combined with the whitest teeth she's ever seen on a person outside of a toothpaste commercial. He doesn't seem to notice her, and if he does he doesn't comment on her presence or introduce himself.

"Half brother." Fitz amends, "His name's Angel. He's a sweet kid. Had no idea what he was walking into."

"Oh, don't start this 'he's still part of our family' shit again." Michael groans, crossing to the wet bar, "He's fuckin' nobody. I don't see why we have to split our inheritance with him just because Jerry doesn't have the fuckin' sense to use a condom or the reflexes to pull out in time."

"Jesus, Mike." Fitz says, grimacing at his brother's lack of a verbal filter, turning around to see his brother pouring himself a scotch. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's not even lunch time, I know, get off my dick why don't you." Michael grumbles, and Fitz clenches his jaw, attempting to level his temper before it gets out of hand this time.

"I meant, how about a little sensitivity?" He explains, like _why is this something I have to spell out for you_, gesturing to Ben with enough subtlety that though their youngest brother sees it, he can pretend he didn't.

"Didn't." Ben corrects instead, and Fitz, Liv and Michael all turn to look at him. When he realizes they don't get it, he repeats, "Jerry _didn't_ have the sense. Past tense."

Fitz barely blinks but Michael flinches, like Ben had yelled it at him or feinted to throw a punch. Liv glances back at him and his mouth twists like _he's_ going to yell or throw a punch, and then finally he just knocks back half the glass and then slams it down on the table in front of Ben. "Fuck off and drown your sorrows, junkie."

He stalks out of the room without another word, and Fitz rises from his seat so fast the chair scrapes against the floor. Liv catches his forearm quickly, and Ben just says calmly, "Let him go."

When Fitz looks back down at Ben, he's looking at the glass in front of him. The liquid is still turbulent, and after a long pause he reaches out and takes it, swirling it slowly around the glass to keep it moving, but give it some order. He stands up and heads over to the sink. "Scotch was never my poison anyway." He tells them calmly, pouring it down the drain, and Liv actually hears Fitz start breathing again.

"So that was Michael?" Liv says as he retakes his seat.

Fitz glances up at the doorway to make sure he hasn't come back. "That was Michael."

* * *

When they're done with breakfast Ben volunteers to clear up, and Fitz and Olivia take him up on it, retreating upstairs to his bedroom. There's a few faded photos tacked rebelliously to the wall, but other than that it looks like a hotel room - nothing like his bedroom back in his apartment in New York. Liv sits on the edge of the bed and takes off her shoes before lying back against the pillows.

"How are you feeling?" She asks him, and he sighs deeply as he takes off his own shoes and crawls onto the bed with her.

"I'm fine." He tells her tiredly, resting his cheek on her stomach, and her hands fall as if automatically to wrap around him; one around his back, the other in his hair. "Michael is turning into a basket case, though." He says, "And I can't tell what's going on with Ben."

"He seems sweet," Liv says, "Kind of quiet, though."

"He wasn't always that way." Fitz says, and there's something very tired in the way he says it though it's different than the way he'd said _I'm fine_, it's sadder than that, "Hopefully this time will stick." Liv looks down at him, not understanding, and he pauses, thinking carefully about his words before he uses them, before saying, "This is his third time trying to get sober."

"He's an alcoholic."

"And the rest." Fitz says resignedly, "I love the kid but he sure does like to sabotage his own life."

"How long does he have this time?" Liv asks, suddenly understanding the sad exhaustion behind _he wasn't always that way._

"Six months. Last time he made it to the day before his two year anniversary, then he got wasted and called me at three in the morning bawling his eyes out and telling me he was a failure." He shakes his head, "It broke my heart." He admits, not unkindly, "He's my brother, and I love him, but I… ever since we were sixteen and he walked out, I've been waiting for a phone call in the middle of the night from a cop asking me to come identify his body." He shakes his head, "I'm thinking about trying to get him to come back to New York with me when we leave."

"You think he might start using again?" She asks, and he takes a deep breath, which falls out of him as an equally deep sigh.

"I don't know. He and Jerry hated each other. I'm not really grieving, but then I've got the- I can deal with that, you know? The only way he's ever coped with anything is a liver full of vodka or a stomach full of pills."

"That's a good idea." She tells him, "Do you think he'll come?"

"I don't know." Fitz answers, and he sounds troubled, almost the way he had when he'd told her that he had to come to California in the first place.

There's a long pause, and then her hands still and she says to the ceiling, "What do you mean you're not grieving?"

"I don't miss him." Fitz answers easily, "He was an asshole in life, I'm not going to make him a saint in death."

"I'm not saying you should make him a saint." She says, hands resuming their movement in his hair, "But no matter how bad things were, he was still your Father. It's okay if you're sad."

"I'm not sad." He says, and there's a bitter edge to his words, "I'm relieved." He sighs slowly, and then says shortly, "I'm free."

"Fitz-"

"I don't want to talk about it." He interrupts sharply, his voice turning tired as he says, "I don't want to think about him, or tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is the will reading, right?" Liv clarifies, and he nods.

"It's going to be a train wreck." Fitz says, thankful for the feeling of her fingers stroking through his hair. "Having a will reading with all the beneficiaries present in one room isn't the law in California any more, it's one of Big Jerry's conditions. Which means whatever he's done, I guarantee you someone's going to leave with a broken nose."

"What do you mean?" Liv asks, "Surely he's just giving you all equal shares of his estate."

"I think however he's divided everything up, he will have done it however will cause the most pain." Fitz answers, voice turning bitter, "That's just who he is. Jerry loved drama, he was always stirring it up."

He tips his head back, chin resting gently on her stomach. "I'm sorry to drag you into all this."

"You didn't." She reminds him, voice as gentle as his touch, hands still moving comfortingly over his scalp, "You needed me so I'm here. We take care of each other, remember?"

All the air slides out of his lungs, and his eyes slide closed. "What would I do without you?" He asks, and she smiles slightly.

"Whatever you were doing before, I guess."

He huffs a short laugh, eyes reopening, "I can't remember." He says, and she giggles lightly before his expression becomes at once softer and more serious, "I'm serious." He tells her, "I can't imagine my life without you in it."

Her thumb brushes over his cheek, gaze regarding him both curious and warm, and she thinks, _neither can I._

Fitz wants to tell her he loves her, but for some unfathomable reason, the words stick in his throat like glue. They burn him up from the inside out and instead, he moves up her body and kisses her deeply. The way she kisses him back, he can't help but wonder if she's feeling the same thing. One of her hands, small and soft, skates up his back beneath his shirt, peaking between his shoulder blades before sinking to rest over the side of his ribs as her knees rise to bracket his body.

They make love slowly that morning, seeking love and reassuring it, and intimacy unspoilt by the malevolence outside. They have the kind of sex that makes you question the reason for the existence of clocks; because how could time ever be accurately quantified? Maybe this moment lasts for half an hour, maybe for hours on end, all they know is that it floats, suspended in the centre of the universe tetherlessly. They crawl under the covers when they're both satisfied, and they fall asleep holding each other, naked and warm and reassured, and when they wake up a few hours later, they repeat the cycle again without even moving from the spooning position they'd slept in.

"_Oh_, baby," He murmurs against her shoulder as he rolls his hips into hers, "My sweet baby."

"All yours," She breathes back, sighing with pleasure as his hand moves up over her stomach to cup her left breast, and hers moves back to bury in his hair, thinking _even if for some reason, be that some strange fluke or a horrible accident of fate, even if our relationship doesn't last, I will always love you. I will always be yours._

* * *

Another three hour nap later, Fitz gets up and throws on jeans and a blue polo, leaving Livvie asleep in his bed with a kiss before heading downstairs. He yawns as he pours himself a glass of water, amazed that he still feels like he just wants to crawl back into bed and not sure he can remember the last time he slept this late. He reaches into his pocket in search of his phone, unsure of the exact time, but finds it's not there. He glances around the kitchen but can't see it on any of the counters, and sets down his water glass as he heads out into the foyer, wondering if he left it with their bags.

"You lose something?" He hears Michael's voice from behind him as he checks his jacket pockets.

"My phone." He answers as his hand closes around it. He pulls it out of the pocket and unlocks it to check the time - _15:27_.

"Who's that?" Michael asks, jerking his chin in the direction of Fitz' phone, where he can see the photo of the two of them he's using as the wallpaper.

"My girlfriend." Fitz answers, and Mike leans forward to look more closely, "She was eating breakfast with me and Ben this morning."

Michael nods but it's clear he doesn't actually remember that, and Fitz sees something that looks a lot like judgment mixed with amusement cross his brother's face.

"Classy." Michael nods again as he talks, "Bringing your prom date to Daddy's funeral. I'm surprised her Mom let her stay the night though, does she know her little girl is rolling around with the likes of you?"

"Cut it out, she's twenty three." Fitz says flatly, locking his phone and dropping it into his back pocket.

"And she works for you?" Michael clarifies, recognizing the logo on Liv's sweatshirt in the picture. Fitz doesn't answer either way, in no mood to have his life choices or relationship with Olivia mocked by his brother, but Mike already knows the answer anyway, and he says, "Wow. Your age and banging a barely legal employee… sounds a lot like you're taking a leaf out of Dad's book if you ask me."

The hot stab of red-mist style anger at the comparison takes him so completely by surprise that he doesn't even have time to temper the urge to send Mike reeling backwards with a powerful shove. "I am nothing like him!" Fitz spits as his brother stumbles into the wall unit behind him, "And don't let me hear you talk about Liv like that ever again."

"Jeez, touchy much?" Michael snaps back, "Learn to take a fucking joke, man."

"Don't say things specifically designed to piss me off then, _man_." Fitz fires back as Michael pushes himself off the wall unit and steps forwards. Fitz doesn't step back.

"_I_ was just messing around but it sounds to me like you've got a guilty conscience." He mocks, now well and truly out to antagonize Fitz.

"I've got nothing to feel guilty about."

"Or maybe you're just getting this worked up because you know that I'm right when I compare you to Dad." He riles, and they're nose to nose now, itching for a proper fistfight.

"I'm not the one with three ex-wives, spending almost as much on alimony as I do on hookers." Fitz counters, and Michael reels back his fist and punches him on the jaw. Fitz staggers back, thinking with an odd moment of clarity that they're both angry with someone who isn't here, and taking it out on each other and dragging their relationship down to a whole new low is going to do nothing but make it worse.

"_You know, maybe_ deep down you're worried that your hot little girlfriend is going to realize that there are hotter, younger guys in this family who she'd be better off with-" Fitz straightens up and retaliates with a harder punch of his own to his brother's cheek, choosing to disregard his earlier theory. Michael grabs his lapels and turns them around, slamming Fitz' back against the wall unit, "I bet she's bendy as hell." He hisses with a grin.

"What are you _doing_? Get the hell off of him!" Liv's voice interrupts, and when Michael makes no move to do so, Fitz shoves him away, not wanting Liv to somehow get caught in the middle of this. He straightens up from the wall and watches her face as she takes in their rumpled appearance, his smarting jaw and Michael's bloody lip. He's surprised to find no judgment in her expression, as she descends the last of the stairs and moves swiftly across the foyer to him, entirely ignoring his brother. "Are you okay?" She asks, voice drenched in concern, and over her head Michael holds Fitz' gaze for a second to make sure he's looking, before dragging his eyes up and down Liv's body lasciviously with a smirk to match. They both know he has no intention of trying anything with Liv, that all he's really trying to do here is drive Fitz crazy, and in any other circumstances it might have worked. But here, with Liv's gentle hand on his jaw, he decides not to waste his time. She's already dealing with his grief-but-not-grief for his Father, the last thing she needs is to watch him act like a damn caveman and then feel like she has to pretend to be okay with it because his Father just died. She deserves better than that.

"I'm fine." He tells her, voice rough, "Let's just go."


	8. Baggage: Part II

**AN: I don't want to jinx it, but I think my writer's block is finally receding. I'm (again) sorry about the wait for those of you who also read The Pressure of Cheating Death, I think I'm going to scrap what I've got of chapter 36 and start over again, in my experience if it's this hard to write, the end product usually isn't worth it. I know it's taking _forever_ but I swear I'm working on it! D:**

* * *

Fitz paces back and forth across the waiting room at Miller, Strasburg and Doltz, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he walks. His suit feels too constrictive and he glances again towards the door. Still nothing. Angel is sat in the corner, SAT Prep book open on his lap, whilst Liv sits across the room, watching Fitz.

The current cause of his concern is not so much the impending reading of his Father's will (T-minus-ten minutes ago) but rather the fact that Ben still isn't here. Fitz understands that his brother is trying. He gets that, he really does, but any time an addict goes AWOL always counts as a cause for concern. Finally he pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls him for the third time, hoping that this time Ben will actually answer.

The phone rings and rings and rings, and just as Fitz is about to give up, the ringing stops. "Hello?"

"Ben, where are you? They want to start, are you coming?" Fitz asks, an inch from praying that he's not about to hear Ben's voice slurring back at him.

"I- no. It's not… There's a meeting and I- I really think I need to go." Ben says, and Fitz isn't totally convinced he's telling the truth – he hopes he is, because the idea of him going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is far healthier than the idea of him sitting in a lawyers office waiting around when they both know that there's a high chance Jerry's cut him out completely just to twist the knife.

"You need me to come and get you?" Fitz asks, thinking about every time he'd cut out of ballet practise early to rescue his brother from some self-induced disaster or other before he'd moved to New York, and there's a long, disconcerting pause.

"No." Ben says finally, "No, I'll be fine. Let me know how it goes."

He hangs up then, before Fitz can say anything else, and he sighs deeply, not completely sure that when Ben says 'I'm going to a meeting' he doesn't actually mean 'I'm going to a bar'.

"Everything okay?" Liv asks, sliding an arm around his waist under his jacket.

"I'm not sure." He answers, dropping his phone back into his pocket and settling his arm around her body, "Ben's not coming. He said he's going to a meeting but…" He trails off and pulls a skeptical face, "I don't know. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit."

"How about this," Liv says, turning her body so that she's standing in front of him, chest to chest, "If you haven't heard from him in, say, two hours, we'll start worrying. Until then, give him the benefit of the doubt."

He nods his agreement though he knows he'll worry anyway, and she kisses him slowly. They just need to get through the next thirty six hours and then they'll be on a flight back to New York, possibly with Ben in tow, and everything will go back to quasi-normal. Despite how it may appear, they can get through this. He knows they can. He leans down to kiss her again, his free hand rising to cup her cheek-

"Morning, love birds." Michael's voice breaks through the moment as the door falls closed behind him and Fitz and Liv break apart. Liv doesn't step back though, she's not particularly looking for a repeat of whatever the hell happened between them yesterday in the entrance hall and she knows Fitz won't start something with Michael if there's a chance that she'll get caught in the crossfire, "Did I miss much? I got held up at the office."

Liv looks up at Fitz but he's looking at his phone, and so she looks back at Michael and tells him, "We're still waiting to start."

"Where's Ben?" Michael asks, glancing around the room, "Let me guess; fell off the world's ricketiest wagon _again_?"

"He decided to go to AA instead." Fitz says without looking up from the email he's reading.

"Yeah, sure he did." Michael scoffs derisively, and Liv feels him tense up.

"Don't start, Mike." Fitz sighs frustratedly, looking up at him at last, "I'd like it if we could just get through today without anyone throwing a punch. Just today, that's all I'm asking."

"Why, you worried I'll mess up your pretty face?" Mike challenges, and Liv takes his hand thinking _I understand that you're struggling with the loss of your Father but Jesus Christ, you two are grown ass men..._

"You know what, how about you stay over there, we'll sit over here-" She starts, hoping to defuse this before it derails any further, But Michael pulls a face and scoffs at her.

"You're a little young to be playing Mommy aren't you?"

"Mrs. Miller will see you now, if you're ready?" They all stop and turn towards the secretary standing in the doorway, her face the very specific kind of blank worn by people who have learned not to react to the things they see and hear.

"About damn time, we've been waiting long enough." Michael tells her impatiently as if he hadn't just arrived himself, as he turns on his heel to storm past her.

* * *

The tension in the room is high enough to be uncomfortable. Erica Miller, Big Jerry's attorney, sits behind a large oak desk surveying the assorted group of people in front of her - seated on the far left, Michael, his favourite by default when the heir to the throne had abdicated his role, tapping away on his phone as if he doesn't care though his jiggling foot betrays his nerves. Next, an empty chair where Benjamin, who he'd given up trying to fix when he'd run away at sixteen, was supposed to sit had he shown up - she's not surprised he hasn't given how many years it's been since they last spoke and the way they'd left things when they had. Then in the middle, Fitzgerald, his first born son and the one he'd craved to connect to above all else - and the one he'd considered to be his greatest disappointment when the boy had chosen passion over duty. A young black woman who'd introduced herself as Olivia Pope sits to his right, Erica is presuming she's his girlfriend, and it's either a fairly recently begun relationship or he'd had the good sense not to introduce his Father to her - no matter how sweet she seems, Big Jerry would've torn her to shreds if only to anger his son and neither of them deserve that. On the far right is Angel, young enough to be his Father's grandson and unsure whether or not he should be grieving for a man he'd never met whilst worried that his grades and SAT's won't be good enough to get him into Yale like he dreams. Their Father had talked about all of them; they'd become quite close friends following her constant refusal to sleep with him, though despite that even she can't believe how deliberately cruel he had been when dividing up his considerable wealth.

She'd asked him several times if he was sure he wanted this to be their final memory of him, and after the final time he'd laughed, brief and bitter, over a twice refilled glass of scotch. "My boys." He'd said, shaking his head and staring off into the middle distance, "They've never gone easy on me, why in hell should I make it easy on them? Maybe it'll make them all finally face their duty to this family."

He'd died two weeks later, and she'd been dreading this day ever since. Slowly, she takes a deep breath, looking down at the paperwork though she doesn't need to - but she'd rather look there than at the group assembled in front of her.

"To my first born son, Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III," She begins, "I leave the lump cash sum of ten million dollars, and all of my shares in Grant International LLC, making him the majority shareholder following my death, incarceration or incapacitation-"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Michael asks sharply, "I work there for twenty years and he gives the company to _you_?"

"I never asked for-"

"No, you didn't, and that's the worst fucking part!" He yells, "I have been busting my ass trying to show him I could do that job and still it's not fucking good enough. But, you? You? Well, he hated your fucking guts and talked shit about you behind your back incessantly but still he'd rather hand his life's work over to you, of fucking course he would!"

"He didn't do it because he thought I wanted it or because he thought it would make me happy!" Fitz retaliates through gritted teeth, thankful for Liv's hand in his, the only thing keeping him sane and calm-ish, "We both know he did it because he wants me to feel obligated to come up here and continue his precious family legacy – and I can't do that and run a ballet company, let alone one on the other side of the country, at the same time, so surprise sur-fucking-prise, he's still trying to screw me over even in death."

"I'm filing a contest." Michael insists immediately, still not sitting or calming down even remotely.

"Don't bother." Fitz tells him, "I don't want it."

"Oh, shut the fuck up." Michael says derisively, "We both know you're not just going to give it to me, and I can't afford to buy you out so we're fucking stuck like this."

"Wow, yeah, how selfish of me to refuse to just _give_ you a hundred million dollars, how could I." Fitz throws back sarcastically.

"Uh, can I just go?" Angel asks from the far right, and Fitz turns to look at him, not sure what the answer is.

"Actually, no." Erica says, and they all turn to look back at her, waiting. "To my youngest son, Angel Matías Cruz, I leave the lump cash sum of ten million dollars, and the main Grant family compound at 2341 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica, Califo-"

"Oh, fuck no!" Michael yells viciously, whirling on their newly discovered half-brother and charging at him like a bull in a china shop. Fitz jumps up and gets between them, not wanting Angel's second memory of meeting his brothers to be receiving a broken nose from one and casual indifference on the matter from another, as was almost the case at their first meeting, too.

* * *

"I knew it wasn't going to go well but that was ridiculous." Fitz says as he sits down; his phone in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other.

"I'm sorry." She tells him, meaning it and unable to completely get her head around his Father's incredible capacity for cruelty - to deliberately divide up his estate in a way that he knew would cause tension between his already feuding children, to have his youngest son be brought into the family in a way that will have him viewed as the usurper who received the gift of a family home that didn't belong to him... it's evil. Pure evil.

"He put his life into building that company." He says without looking at her, "And Michael's been working there his entire adult life."

"And now it's yours."

"And now it's mine." He agrees, knowing how selfish it is to wish Jerry had just left the company to Michael.

"What are you going to do?" She asks him and he shakes his head slightly, sighing.

"I don't know. I can't run it, obviously, even if I worked out of the New York office. There aren't enough hours in the day to work for both Grant Inc. and the New York City Ballet. Plus, I don't want the job. I'd be miserable."

Liv takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "How much would it cost Mike to buy you out?"

"I own 51% of the company, so… a little over 125."

"Million?"

He nods, trying not to smile at the clarification, and she pulls a face. "I'm guessing he doesn't have that kind of cashing lying around."

"He spends money faster than he makes it. If I had to guess I'd say that the inheritance he got is probably already half spent, let alone having those kind of savings." Fitz tells her.

"What about you keeping the company, but employing him to run it?"

"I've thought about it but it isn't as simple as me just giving him the job. We'd have to go through the board and I have no idea how amenable they'd be to the idea."

"What about a straight swap?" Michael say from the doorway, and they both turn to look at him. "Almost. I already own ten per cent of the company, so I don't need all his shares to be majority owner."

"You still need at least forty one per cent." Fitz reminds him, "Which makes-"

"I'll give you everything he gave me. The cash, the hedge funds, all of it. It won't be exactly what the shares are worth but it'll be close."

Fitz looks at him without saying anything for a long time, until finally he says, "Can you and your lawyer be in New York for Thursday morning?"

"I- I might have to move some stuff around but... I think so. Why, are you..." He shakes his head, looking suddenly more like their younger brother than the man Fitz has come to know and actively avoid, "Are you saying yes?"

"You want the company, I don't." Fitz says without answering the question, "I need to talk to my lawyer first, but it seems like the best solution."

They watch each other from across the room, and Liv looks away. She wonders what they would've been like if they'd been raised in the real world - with a middle class tax bracket and a stable home life. She looks back up in time to see Michael take his phone out of his pocket, turn on his heel and head for the stairs. As she turns back to Fitz, intending to ask him if he's okay, she sees him staring down at his silent phone frustratedly before dialling and holding it to his ear.

"What's wrong?" She asks him, taking his empty glass off the table and standing to refill it from the decanter behind him.

"It's been almost three hours." Fitz says, leaning back in his chair and carelessly chucking his phone onto the coffee table in front of him, "AA meetings are between an hour and ninety minutes long."

"And he's not answering his cell." Liv guesses, leaning down and crossing her hands over his chest as she passes him the drink.

"And he's not answering his cell." Fitz confirms with a deep sigh, one hand rising to cover hers. "I can't do this again." He tells her, shaking his head as he stands up, "I can't watch him kill himself." As he stands up he pauses, like he wants to say something else, before he just shakes his head and sighs. "I'm going to get some air." He tells her, and he heads outside. It's her instinct to follow him, to make sure he's okay, but she knows that he doesn't need that right now. He just needs a minute alone, the way we all do from time to time.

Stepping outside, drink in hand, Fitz doesn't feel any better. This whole place has always felt so claustrophobic to him; the house, the grounds, all of it. The only real way he could get the fresh air he's looking for would be to step outside the main gate, and truth be told, once he and Liv leave here tomorrow evening, he's not convinced he'll ever come back again. He can't imagine why he'd want to; the walls of the place are alive in the same way that zombies are; dead inside though they can't comprehend it, and doing nothing but hunting you down because it's all they've ever known how to do. The whole place is toxic, rotten from the inside out, and he doesn't envy Angel it's ownership. Angel who is sat on the patio leaning back against the waist height wall separating the patio from the pool deck, looking up at the house he didn't grow up in.

"You alright?" Fitz asks, and Angel sighs deeply.

"I know this probably sounds ungrateful as hell, but I don't even want it."

"So sell it." Fitz shrugs, and Angel looks up, surprised.

"You'd be okay with that?" He asks, "I mean, you grew up here, right?"

"We did." Fitz nods, turning around to look back up at the house, "To be honest, I'd tell you to burn it down but then you get nothing. If you sell it, you'll probably at least double your liquid inheritance."

"I can't believe he just _gave _me ten million dollars and a mansion." He says, shaking his head, "That's- I mean, who does that? We never even met each other. I didn't- I didn't even know he existed until that lawyer called me when he died."

"Maybe that's why he did it." Fitz suggests, not wanting to upset the kid further, "He thought it might make up for his absence."

Not knowing how to answer that, Angel doesn't say anything at all. He just looks at Fitz looking at the house, and tries to imagine what the hell went on behind those doors that was bad enough it couldn't be fixed by being papered over with hundred dollar bills - and that his half-brother still hasn't been able to let go of despite the fact that he's in his forties and lives two and a half thousand miles away in New York.

"To be honest, you got the dream, kid." Fitz says after a while, turning his gaze back on his half-brother. When Angel just looks at him, clearly not understanding, Fitz says, "You got the cash flow benefit of being Big Jerry's kid, without actually having to deal with being his kid."

"He was really that bad?" Angel asks, wondering if he didn't have a lucky escape. His step-dad may not be related to him, but he's a good man, his hero, truth be told; a hard worker who takes care of his family and would give the shirt off his back for a stranger in need. He likes to think that he's like him, and it's an uncomfortable thought to question: _if I had been raised by my biological Father, who has clearly done so much damage to so many, who would I be? Which of my brothers would I have wound up as - the one who had to run away to pursue the life he wanted, the one who endlessly bowed and scraped in desperate hope of Jerry's approval or the one who turned to booze and pills just to get through the day?_

"Worse." Fitz answers, with no qualms about speaking ill of the dead.

* * *

If Liv was looking for the thing that would crack through Fitz' _everything's fine I'm completely fine can't you see how fine I am_ facade, it turns out that the combination of the fight with Michael, the disastrous will reading and Ben's disappearing act is what does it in the end. When it hits midnight, and, consequently hour eleven of no contact with his youngest brother, Fitz walks up to his bedroom and slams the door hard enough that it echoes through half the house.

"Have fun dealing with that." Michael offers sarcastically from the living room doorway, and Liv turns around to look at him.

"You're not worried about your brother?" She asks, almost skeptically.

"I've given up worrying about Benjamin." He tells her with a shrug, turning to lean back against the doorframe, "He's probably some place shooting up, big fuckin' surprise."

"How can you be that cold?" Liv asks him, not understanding how someone like Fitz could be related to someone like Michael, all the similarities she'd seen in them earlier vanishing as if they'd never been there in the first place.

"I've had a lot of practice." Michael answers without looking at her, "He wants to piss his life away, fine, why should I lose my mind trying to stop him?"

Even if she could get her head around that kind of callousness, Liv has no idea how to respond, so instead she drains the last of her glass of wine and stands up, heading straight past Michael to go upstairs.

"Fitz is the one who worries." Michael says, and she stops halfway up the stairs, looking back at him over her shoulder. "When we were kids... Mom dead, Dad not around much... somebody had to step up. The guy practically raised me, and I'm grateful for that, okay? But... he's not our Father, he's not _Ben's_ father. Until he gets that... We're not kids anymore, you know? He's got to move on."

Liv doesn't answer him; she doesn't know how to, truth be told. She slowly turns back around and keeps walking up the stairs, feeling that so much about him and who he is and how he sees himself now makes far more sense than it ever has. She opens the door to his bedroom slowly, poking her head into the room only to find it empty. She can hear a shower running though, and see the light spilling out beneath the bathroom door and onto the carpet. She's not sure whether he really wants company right now, but she does know that she can't just sit out here and do nothing.

She shuts the bedroom door and locks it for good measure, before walking to the bathroom and opening it just as slowly as she'd opened his bedroom door. She can just about make out his silhouette through the combination of the frosted glass shower door and the steam filling the room. He's leaning back against the wall underneath the showerhead with his eyes closed, and it kills her to see him so clearly in pain.

She sheds her jeans, sweater and underwear and steps into the shower with him, trying not to open the door too far to let too much cold air in. His eyes open as she pulls the door closed again, and she holds out her hand for his hand, watching him carefully. He can see the sympathy on her face, and forces himself to see at as such, not to twist it into pity so that he can turn his pain into anger and take it out on her. He slowly raises his hand and takes hers, still trying to convince himself that he can ignore the rock sized lump in his throat.

She doesn't say anything, because there isn't anything anyone could say to make him feel better right now, instead she just steps forwards and stretches up on her toes to wrap her arms around his shoulders. She can feel him taking slow deep breaths and letting them out quickly as he winds his arms around her waist, and it breaks her heart when he makes a choked off noise that's not quite a sob before smothering the sound by hiding his face in the crook of her neck.

She can feel the water from the shower rushing down her back and his hot tears sliding over her collarbone, and she holds him tighter wishing she could just make his pain go away.

* * *

The high pitched ringing of a cell phone wakes Liv up in the middle of the night. She yawns as she sits up, squinting through the darkness towards the glow of the phone on Fitz' dresser across the room. She glances over at him; still sleeping soundly, and quickly gets up to get it before it wakes him up.

The Caller ID says _Ben_, and Liv's heart skips a beat, hoping she's not going to have to wake Fitz up to tell him that she's just spoken to an apologetic cop or a paramedic. "Hello?"

There's a pause and then Ben's uncertain voice saying, "Uh, I think I might've dialed the wrong number-"

"No, it's Olivia, I answered Fitz' phone because he's sleeping." She explains quickly, "Are you okay? Where are you?"

"I'm fine. I- I'm not drunk, I swear, I just… Sorry, I shouldn't have called like this-" He stops and sighs deeply, and Liv turns at the sound of sheets shifting behind her. Fitz props himself up on his elbow and squints at her.

"Livvie?"

"It's Ben." She tells him quickly, and that seems to wake him up faster. "He doesn't sound drunk." She reassures him before he says anything else, and he holds out a hand for the phone. She moves to his side and hands it to him, sitting down beside him on the bed.

"Ben?" He says, his voice laced with the kind of worry that you hear from a parent rather than a brother, pure worry and concern that make him sound angry, rather than any kind of real vitriol or disparagement, "Where the hell are you?" There's a pause and then his voice takes on a tone of barely hidden accusation, "I remember that place, you're in a bar." He pauses again, then, "Don't. I'm coming to get you just stay where you are." She hopes she didn't miss some kind of tell that Fitz, who knows his brother better than anyone, has heard which proves he's drunk or been using. "I mean it, Ben. I'll be there in ten minutes- stop, I believe you, okay? You're not drunk. Just stay there."

They say their goodbyes and then he hangs up the phone, dropping it down onto the covers at the end of the bed. "I-" He stops, and sighs, "I'm going to go and get him."

"He's in a bar but he's not drunk?" Liv clarifies, and he nods slowly. "That's pretty amazing." She says, and he turns his head to look at her quickly, "For someone with a twenty year habit to go to a bar right after something as stressful as losing a parent, and to manage to stop themselves from drinking?"

"He said he was going to a meeting."

She nods, unable to argue with that point. "We should get going." She says instead, and she knows before she's even finished talking that he's going to argue. He doesn't disappoint.

"You're staying here." He tells her, firmly, "I'm going to a bad neighborhood at three in the morning, there's no way I'm taking you with me, Liv."

She just smiles at him, and leans slowly forwards to press a gentle kiss to his mouth. "I'm coming with you." She tells him firmly, voice little more than a whisper.

He kisses her back, slowly and without intention, feeling so fiercely glad that she's here and she's his that for a whole minute he just lets himself revel in it, and her. "I love you." He tells her, not for the first time and most definitely not for the last.

"I love you, too." She whispers back, and it's enough to give him the strength to get up and go through his oft repeated nighttime ritual of days gone by.

* * *

When they find Ben he's sat on the pavement outside of a run down looking dive bar, his arms hooked loosely around his knees, his shoulders hunched inwards. He's shivering against the cold, and as they pull up a couple car lengths from him, Liv sees the deep sadness etched into Fitz' face at how broken his brother looks.

He gets out of the car, and she moves over the center console and into the driver's seat when he does. She watches through the windshield as Ben looks up at Fitz, and sighs before taking Fitz' proffered hand to help him up. She can't hear them from inside the car, but she can clearly make out the words _I'm sorry_ from Ben, and Fitz pulls him forward to give him a hug. She's once again struck by how parental he is with his younger brother, and she can't help but momentarily picture him with a couple of young kids who look like him and look like her, but she forces the thought away as Fitz leads Ben back to the car.

The drive back to the Grant place is heavy with a silence that doesn't let up even as they walk inside. As soon as they get through the door, Ben moves to immediately head upstairs to his room, but Fitz glances at Liv and then says, "Ben, wait."

He turns, a few steps up, clearly waiting for some kind of lecture, "Come back to New York with us." Fitz says, "I've got plenty of space, and it might do you good to get away from LA for a while."

"You know, normally I'd argue but…" Ben trails off, "Clearly whatever I'm doing isn't working, so sure, why not."

"We're flying back tomorrow night, but I could stay a couple extra days if you need-"

"Tomorrow's fine." Ben says with a sad not-quite smile, "It's not like I've got anyone to say goodbye to or whatever."

There's a long pause, and Liv isn't sure which one of them is going to fill it when Fitz tells him, "He left me the company and Angel the house. Michael gets the hedge funds and then his personal money got divided up between us."

"Us?" He asks, though it's clear on his face that he's not sure he wants to know the answer.

"Ten each for me, Mike and Angel, twenty for you since we all got other things as well."

Ben doesn't know what to say, and finally he just says, "How nice of him. What time's our flight?"

"Ten o'clock from LAX." Fitz says, watching his brother carefully for any signs of an impending meltdown.

Ben's only reply is a brief nod and, "I'll be ready. G'night.", before he turns away and retreats back up the stairs.

"Night." Fitz echoes back up the stairs, and Ben doesn't turn around, though Liv watches Fitz watch him until he can't see him any more.

"Hey," She says gently, stepping into his space and wrapping her arms around him, "Let's go back to bed."

He looks down at her looking up at him, and he sighs, the beginnings of a smile forming on his face for the first time all day. "I love you." He tells her again, and she breaks into a real smile, standing up on her toes to kiss him goodnight, good morning and _I love you, too_.


	9. Gymnopédies No 1

**AN: ****Right, that's enough of that angst for a while. Back to the ballet! Just to be clear, the two parts that are labeled with the time frame 'mid-march' are set like a week after Eli showed up/chapter 6.**

* * *

Mid-March

Fitz is not an avoidant person by nature. Typically, he likes to deal with any issues he's facing head on, and to deal with them thoroughly when he does. That being said, he's been what essentially amounts to hiding in his office for the entire day, hoping that no one comes by – most especially Cyrus and Mellie. His secretary is under strict instructions not to let anyone other than Olivia in, but she's been stuck in rehearsal all day so he hasn't seen her. He must admit, he's a little glad about that. She knows why he's hiding if she knows that he is, and he knows that she won't let him get away with it.

He sits back in his chair, contemplatively eyeing the phone. It would kill him if he thought that there were things she felt she wanted to hide from him because she thought he wouldn't understand - wouldn't _try_ to understand at the very least. He sighs, and grabs the phone out of it's cradle, punching in her cell phone number and knowing that there's a chance she won't answer given that she's probably in a rehearsal or in class at the moment. She answers on what he's sure must be the last ring, a touch out of breath.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Livvie." He says, stretching back to cross his ankles on the desk in front of him.

"Hi." She says warmly, and then, because there's apparently nothing she doesn't know about him, "You wouldn't happen to be hiding in your office, would you?"

"Of course not, wherever would you get such an idea?" He lies, not bothering to attempt to hide his deception.

"It's Thursday afternoon." She reminds him, "Normally you spend the day playing drill sergeant before the- oh. _Ohh._" She says slowly, "It's the board meeting. You're hiding because you don't want to go."

"You know me too well." He affects to complain, "And it's not that I don't want to go, exactly, I just... don't- want to go." He trails off and he hears her stifle a laugh.

"Thank you, that really clears things up."

He closes his eyes, sighing deeply. _Out with it. _"Cyrus told Mellie."

"About your secret project?" Liv clarifies, and he nods even though she can't see him.

"I'm one hundred per cent certain that they're going to bring it up today in front of the board."

"That's a good thing, Fitz," She tells him, "From what I've seen of it so far, it looks amazing. Plus, it's, you know... _you_, so they're going to be ecstatic to find out that you're officially coming out of retirement."

"That I _might_." He argues automatically, "The 'might' part being the reason that I didn't want this in front of the board yet - I'm not even sure I want to finish it, let alone put it on with the entire company next season, which is what they both want."

"Fitz." Liv says in the voice he's teasingly dubbed her Mommy Voice. "It's incredible. You're incredible. You'll finish it, because I've seen how passionate you've been about the show since you first came up with it. So you'll finish it, and it's going to be great."

"And it's going to be great." He echoes, only semi-sarcastically, eyes finding the clock on the wall across from him. He's officially out of time to avoid this. He sighs deeply. "I have to go. Torture awaits."

Liv laughs at that, properly, loudly, and despite his self-pitying mood, it makes him smile. "Don't be such a baby. Go. Blow their minds."

"Okay. I'll find you after?"

"You better. I love you."

"I love you, too, sweet baby." Fitz smiles, thinking that he's luckier to have her undiluted love now more than ever considering how absorbed he's been in his work on the new piece he's been creating for the past couple of months since they returned from California.

* * *

End of January - Beginning of March

When they return from California, Fitz' mood seems to nosedive – and it doesn't even seem to help when, one week, two meetings and four lawyers later, Fitz signs over 41% of his 51% stake in Grant International to Michael for 80% of what the shares were actually worth (not that he's complaining about what is still a high-eight figure pay out), or when one of the other board members approaches him for the remaining 10%. He considers refusing, not wanting to wind up embroiled in office politics if he doesn't have to, before deciding that he'd rather just wash his hands of the whole thing, every last share, and stay out of it all together – besides, the guy offers him almost enough to make up the difference between what Michael paid him and what the shares were worth. He gets a slew of furious emails from his brother an hour after the sale is finalized, but he ignores them all. Michael is majority shareholder. He got what he wanted, end of argument, as far as Fitz is concerned.

He starts dancing again, always with Liv, and then, gradually, without her too, and slowly but surely, he starts to feel a little better. Something isn't right though – something, something, crawling around under his skin constantly and refusing to let him settle and be still.

"You have the itch." Liv smiles knowingly one evening when he tries to explain it to her. He sets down his glass of wine, watching her curiously.

"The itch?"

She nods, "You know, the creative itch? You want to let out whatever's churning away inside you, but whatever you've been doing so far – whatever failsafe always worked before, isn't working now. For you, dancing was always the thing you used to decompress, but…"

"But what else am I supposed to do?" He asks frustratedly, "I'm not good at anything else."

"First of all, yes, you are." Liv says, fixing him with a _look,_ "And second of all, maybe the dancing isn't the problem. Maybe it's dancing other people's feelings, other people's work." He's caught on to what she means, what she's suggesting, but he doesn't say anything yet because he's not sure what he would say, yet. She stands up and rounds the dining table between them, moving to sit on his lap with her arms around his shoulders. He wraps his arms around her, feeling relieved to have her close – to have her still want to be close to him after everything that went on in California. He's sure it wasn't as bad as it felt, but it felt terrible, so he can only imagine what it must have seemed like to her. "You've been dancing other people's classics your entire career; Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet; they're all classics, and the New York City Ballet can and has pulled them off to perfection several times before – but that's the point; they've already been done."

"What's your point?" He asks, raising his eyebrows, and she smiles at him softly, though there's an edge behind her eyes: a dare, you could even call it.

"Maybe you need to… let it out. Create your own classic." She tells him, holding his gaze, "You see the world with this incredible eye for art. I've learnt so much about so many things, just by being around you. Create your own classic, and show the world what you show me. Show them who you are."

Try as he might, he can't get her words out of his head. It takes him weeks to decide what exactly he wants to create, but whilst he's figuring it out he choreographs more scenes than he has in years, specifically from books that he would never expect to see turned into ballets; creates routines for Henry's grief following Catherine's death at the end of Hemingway's _A Farewell to Arms_, for Yossarian's constant struggle to make sense of the war and take control of his own life after being offered a way out by Cathcart and Korn in Heller's _Catch-22._ He creates a pas de deux for Archer looking back on his memories of Ellen twenty five years after their disparate relationship ended in Wharton's _The Age of Innocence_, enlisting Liv to be his partner, flitting in and out of the scene with his recollections – he has her dance opposite him as Rosemary, too, when he choreographs a pas of the scene in Fitzgerald's _Tender is The Night_ in which she and Dick frantically reunite to temporarily rekindle their passionate but ill-advised affair.

It isn't until he re-reads McEwan's _Atonement_, the work that partially inspires the piece, that he begins to focus more specifically on one project; focuses on it until it's almost consuming every waking moment of his consciousness. Liv knows it's the one that's going to stick before she ever sees so much as a single step when he calls her from Lincoln Center at two o'clock in the morning.

"Sorry, I know it's late and you're sleeping, but I need you here, Liv." He tells her, and she sits up, drawing the blankets around her body against the cold air.

"Why, what's- is something wrong?" She asks him, but as soon as she says it she knows the answer will be 'no'. She can hear it in his voice that, in fact, the answer is the very opposite, and her heart clenches oddly in her chest.

"No, baby, I'm- I need to show you something."

She doesn't even glance at the clock, or pay mind to the cold, as she steps out of the bed and reaches for yesterday's jeans lying neatly over the back of the chaise lounge in the corner of the bedroom. "I'm leaving right now." She promises him, phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder as she steps into the closet and grabs a dark red cardigan, tugging it on over the T-shirt of his she'd worn to bed, and taking the phone back into her hand as she heads back out.

When she gets there she sits in the same seat she watched him dance alone in for the first time six months ago, knees pulled up to her chest, and he takes her breath away once again. He moves with such power and grace, so sure of himself and his body that his actions appear both effortless and limitless. She's half expecting him to simply step into the air and take off as if he's been flying on his own strength all his life, truth be told.

He's shredding his classical training, both the musicality and precision of the Balanchine method he studied all his life and the theatricality and lines of the Vaganova method he learned in Russia – taking it apart, step by step and thread by thread – weaving it into something new and different.

* * *

Mid-March

"Are you cooking?" Fitz asks skeptically as he closes his apartment door once both he and Olivia are inside.

"Does grilled cheese count as cooking?" Ben calls back as they walk into the kitchen hand in hand.

"No." Fitz and Liv say at the same time, and Ben throws them a dry glare.

"Then no, Mr. and Mrs. Masterchef, I'm not cooking – not for you assholes, anyway."

"Somehow, I think we'll survive." Fitz says sarcastically, and Ben holds up both middle fingers and sticks his tongue out at him.

Rolling her eyes at their antics, Liv tells Fitz, "I'm going to take a shower." as she stretches up on her toes to kiss the corner of his mouth, "Wanna join me?"

He smirks down at her, "I'll be right there, baby."

"Don't take too long." She murmurs, grinning up at him, stepping back out of his reach when he leans forward to kiss her, and he can't help but smile as she heads out of the kitchen and away down the hall.

Without bothering to pretend he didn't hear her, Ben says, "So your girlfriend wants you to take a shower with her… and you're standing here… with me… because…" He trails off, perplexed, not understanding why (or how) anyone would want to do that ever, especially when said girlfriend is _Liv_.

Fitz takes out his phone, pulls up the gallery and selects the picture he's looking for. He passes his phone to Ben, and says, "If you see that guy around here – or the theatre, or anywhere near Liv – I need you to tell me."

"Sure, man, but who is this guy?" Ben asks, passing the phone back.

"Her Father." He answers, glancing briefly down at the picture he'd pulled off of Eli's LinkedIn account, "He's not a good guy."

"Not a good guy like Jerry wasn't a good guy?" Ben asks as he drops his grilled cheese on to a waiting plate, "Or…?"

"Worse." Fitz answers flatly, setting his phone down on the counter beside him, "I warned him to stay away from her but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to take no for an answer."

"I'm worried he's going to come back when I'm not there." Fitz admits, leaning back against the counter as Ben looks back at him over his shoulder before turning back to cleaning the dishes in the sink.

"So ask her to move in here." Ben suggests with a shrug, "She's here more often than she's not anyway."

"I'd love that, obviously, but I don't want her to think I'm only asking because of this thing with her Father." Fitz says, and Ben snorts with laughter.

"You're such a fucking girl sometimes, Fitzgerald." He says with an eye roll that Fitz doesn't have to see to know is happening, "Ask her to move in with you and leave out the part about her Dad. Or, if you absolutely have to tell her, put it in as like a footnote or whatever - or, if you must have some kind of deep and meaningful discussion, just, like... tell her what you just said to me and then she'll know for sure that it's because you _looove_ her. What did he do to her, anyway?" Ben asks, brows creased as he crosses the kitchen to put the used pan in the sink.

"She doesn't like to talk about it." Fitz answers carefully, not wanting to break Liv's trust, "But let's just say she's better off without him in her life."

It's enough to answer his brother's question without actually answering the question, and Ben shakes his head with barely concealed disgust. "Fathers." He says derisively as he turns away and heads back for his sandwich, "They're all the same."

"Apparently." Fitz agrees wryly, before changing the subject before they end up in a spiral of bitterness, "Don't you have a meeting today?"

Ben blinks at him, and there's a momentary pause as he thinks about it, then-

"Shit!" He says quickly, grabbing his coat and scarf off of the back of the nearest chair at the breakfast bar, "Oh, man, it starts in, like, fifteen minutes, I totally forgot. I owe you one." He says quickly, looping the scarf around his neck with one hand and jamming a beanie on his head with the other.

"No problem." Fitz answers, surprised by his brother's eagerness not to be late, "So they're helping?"

"Well, I mean, it's AA." Ben shrugs, zipping up his coat and snatching his sandwich off of his plate, "And NA isn't so bad either. I'm- adapting to life without a crutch, or whatever."

"Good." Fitz says, nodding, "I'm proud of you."

Ben pauses his mad tornado of trying not to be late and looks back at his older brother, surprised to hear him say it despite the fact that he knows it's true, _and_ the fact that Fitz always was more easy with his affection than anyone else in their family, "Thanks, man." He says, breaking into a smile, and Fitz smiles back before he heads out.

* * *

Early April

"Ben." Mellie says, smiling politely though they both know it's for show, "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"I'm living with Fitz for a while." He answers, "Well," he amends almost wryly, "Fitz and Olivia, most of the time now."

"They're living together?" Mellie asks, visibly surprised and not wholly able to hide her obvious derision.

"Not officially but… pretty much, yeah." Ben shrugs, acutely aware of the fact that he's pissing her off and taking no small amount of amusement in it.

"Oh." Mellie says, swallowing and plastering a fake smile on her face. "How nice for them. Do you know where he is? I need to talk to him."

"I think he's busy." Ben tells her, some of that amusement spilling over into his voice at last.

"What?" Mellie asks frustratedly, like, _I don't have time for riddles, what is it you're trying to say to me?_

He gestures behind her to where Olivia is dancing on the stage by herself whilst Fitz sits a few rows back in the audience, watching her. He's leaning forwards, elbows braced on his thighs, hands linked; silent and enraptured. She's dancing to Erik Satie's Gymnopédies No. 1 – one of the most famous pieces of music in the world though most people would only recognize it if they heard it. It's inextricably romantic and only enhances Olivia's already arresting grace. As she walks slowly down the red-carpeted aisle between the seats towards Fitz, Mellie doesn't even spare him a glance. No matter how she may feel about her hus- _ex-husband's_ new play thing, even she cannot deny that the girl is an extraordinary talent – intelligent and beautiful, too, stunning in fact – making it all the more unsurprising that Fitz seems to have fallen for her so hard.

Mellie stops at the end of the row Fitz sits in, both of them still looking at Olivia, who is so lost in the music and the movement and the moment that she is entirely unaware of their eyes on her. Given the level of Olivia's talent, Mellie can only imagine how staggering the combination of her dancing whatever Fitz choreographs for her in his new project will be. She's not seen any of it - the only people who have as far as she knows are Cyrus and Olivia - but then, she wasn't expecting to at this stage. It's not like the board were ever going to make him audition before they gave him near carte blanche approval for the project, which they had, almost before he could finish confirming that she and Cyrus had been telling the truth.

Tearing her eyes away from the stage, Mellie walks to Fitz' side and drops the A4 manila envelope out of her hand and into his lap. He looks away from Olivia in surprise, first down at his lap and then up at Mellie.

"HBO wants to make a documentary about your return to the stage." She tells him, and before he can comment either way, "I want you to do it, the board wants you to do it, you're doing it."

He pauses, not answering immediately. She can see the hesitance in his face though it's almost entirely covered by his poker face. "I'll think about it." He answers finally.

"Read that, have your lawyers look at it, then sign it." Mellie tells him as if he hadn't even spoken, gesturing to the envelope in his lap, "Get it back to me by the end of the week."

"I'll think about it." Fitz repeats, his tone harder and indicating that the conversation is over. He looks away, gaze unerringly finding Olivia again, and Mellie sighs, pursing her lips. They're testing the technical elements of the theatre; lighting and sound and so forth, rather than rehearsing any specific scene, and Olivia is dancing phrases from different ballets as and where they fit to the music; she is, unbeknownst to Mellie, choosing them from Fitz' favorite ballets – parts of Kitri's solos in Don Quixote, Odette's in Swan Lake, and the show that brought them together; Giselle.

"Ben tells me you're living together." She says, without looking away from Olivia.

"He's working hard on his sobriety, I figured a change of scenery would do him good." Fitz answers though it's that clear she has only the smallest amount of his attention.

"That's not who I was talking about and you know it." She tells him, looking away now though he doesn't. She watches him watch Olivia and finds herself wondering if he ever, even once, looked at her like that when she wasn't looking. She knows for damn sure he never did when she was.

"I don't know what you're looking for from me Mellie, but I'm not sure the conversation you're trying to have here is any of your business." He answers flatly.

"Are you going to marry her?" Mellie persists anyway, and the edges of his lips threaten to quirk up in a smile but he tempers it so quickly she almost thinks she imagined it.

"That would be up to her, I believe." He replies, eyes never leaving her.

"But you want to?" Mellie presses, and Fitz looks away and at Mellie now finally, out of sheer frustration.

"Yes, Mellie, I would like very much to marry her, no, I haven't asked her yet, and no, I won't be asking for your blessing _when_ I do." He tells her sharply, "Anything else?"

"No." She says finally, shifting where she stands with an uncomfortable feeling she does her level best to hide.

"Okay then, are we done here?" Fitz asks, and he's not entirely sure why she was even asking. She and Fitz have been divorced for going on a decade now, and she's happy with Andrew, is it so strange to her that he might have found someone he wants to be with? He thought they hashed all this out when she found out about his relationship with Olivia - and that was almost six months ago.

Mellie doesn't answer him, just pulls one of her _must you be so rude, Fitzgerald_ faces and turns to walk away, "Get that back to me by the end of the week." She throws over her shoulder as she goes - always must have the parting shot, naturally, and Fitz really doesn't care enough to want to take it from her. He drops the envelope onto the chair next to him and returns his full attention to Olivia, just in time to see her sail through Kitri's grand jeté.

"Okay, thanks, Liv, that's enough for now. Take five!" Rosen calls to her from the sound desk, fading the music out, and she stops, giving him a quick thumbs up to show she's heard him. She heads to the edge of the stage and gently jumps down, walking towards him. He takes her water bottle out of her bag and meets her halfway, holding it out for her to take.

"You blow my mind." He tells her, smiling widely and she laughs, the same way she almost always does when he tries to pay her a compliment. "I mean it," He says, gently running the backs of his fingers down her arm until he reaches her hand. He links their fingers together, never mind who might be watching, "Everything that's happening... you're my muse, Livvie."

She smiles up at him, that sweet smile with a little giggle that makes him feel like a teenager all over again. She glances briefly around the room - there's only a handful of people in the auditorium and none of them are paying them any attention - before stepping forwards and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I love you." She says, the words music to his ears in much the same way that the way she shows her love for him every day is a balm to his once tired soul. He leans down, smiling, and kisses her, wondering if she really knows the extent to which she brought him back to life.


End file.
